/££. 

*" 


,Frank.C.Haddod<. 


METAPHYSICS 


A  STUDY  IN  FIRST  PRINCIPLES 


BY 


BORDEN    P.    BOWNE 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  BOSTON  UNIVERSITY,  AND 
AUTHOR  OF  "STUDIES  IN  THEISM" 


NEW  YORK 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  FRANKLIN  SQUARE 

1882 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1882,  by 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  "Washington. 

AH  rights  reserved. 


Debicatefc 

IX   GRATEFUL  RECOLLECTION 
TO   THE    MEMORY   OF    MY   FRIEXD   AND    FORMER   TEACHER 

HERMANN  LOTZE 


2064082 


PREFACE. 


THAT  works  on  metaphysics  are  always  useless,  and  gen- 
erally absurd,  is  the  profound  conviction  of  many.  This 
conviction,  indeed,  has  seldom  been  reached  by  reflection,  but 
is  the  outcome  of  echo,  hearsay,  and  party-tradition.  Such 
creeds  are  always  of  the  strongest ;  for,  not  being  founded 
upon  argument,  argument  cannot  shake  them.  Fashion, 
or  rather  that  somewhat  variable  and  multiform  sprite, 
the  spirit  of  the  times,  determines  both  their  coming  and 
their  going.  Hence,  holders  of  the  creed  mentioned  gener- 
ally cherish  a  profound  scorn  for  metaphysical  writers,  which 
scorn  is,  not  infrequently,  met  with  an  equal  and  opposite 
contempt.  Metaphysicians  are  apt  to  think,  with  SchelHng, 
that  philosophy  is  not  everybody's  affair ;  and  if  others  find 
their  writings  useless  or  superfluous,  they  reply,  with  Fichte, 
that  such  persons  do  not  belong  to  those  for  whom  they 
wrote.  But  neither  scorn  nor  contempt  proves  anything 
which  it  is  important  to  have  established.  In  the  last  resort, 
the  decision  concerning  the  true  and  the  false  must  depend, 
not  on  sneers  and  supercilious  assumption,  nor  even  on  the 
spirit  of  the  times,  be  that  sprite  one  or  many,  but  on  plain 
fact  and  losic. 


VI 


PREFACE. 


There  is  an  immanent  metaphysics  in  all  thinking  and  in 
all  science.  Physics  is  founded  on  metaphysics.  Its  basal 
ideas  are  not  given  in  experience,  but  are  metaphysical  no- 
tions -whereby  we  seek  to  interpret  experience.  "Whoever 
will  reflect  upon  the  current  arguments  of  what  is  pleased 
to  call  itself  the  new  philosophy,  will  see  that  they  all  im- 
ply a  definite  metaphysical  conception  of  the  system  of 
things,  and  that  they  lose  their  grip  without  it.  Most  be- 
liefs, in  short,  are  but  implications  of  a  system  of  metaphys- 
ics, consciously  or  unconsciously  held ;  and  they  run  back 
to  that  system  for  their  justification.  The  great  debates 
of  the  time  are  essentially  metaphysical.  The  debaters  sel- 
dom suspect  it ;  and  yet  both  sides  are  busy  with  the  nature 
of  being,  and  with  the  antitheses  of  freedom  and  necessity, 
of  matter  and  spirit,  and  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite.  The 
phenomena  of  the  system  are  the  same  for  all ;  the  dispute, 
concerns  their  interpretation  ;  and  this,  in  turn,  depends  en- 
tirely upon  our  metaphysics.  When,  then,  any  one  fancies, 
in  good  faith,  that  metaphysics,  or  metaphysical  assumptions, 
can  be  escaped,  one  is  strongly  tempted  to  vault  forthwith 
into  the  seat  of  the  scornful.  Since,  then,  we  must  use 
metaphysical  conceptions,  whether  we  will  or  not,  it  is  al- 
lowable to  make  these  notions  the  subject  of  a  special  in- 
quiry, with  the  aim  of  fixing  their  value  and  significance. 
This  is  all  the  more  permissible  from  the  fact  that  the  pre- 
tended repudiation  of  metaphysics  always  has  the  practical 
result  of  assuming  without  criticism  a  very  definite  system 
of  metaphysics — generally,  a  materialistic  fatalism.  This 
work  is  meant  as  such  an  inquiry.  It  is  by  no  means  a 
"  mental  philosophy,"  which  is  the  common  understanding 
of  metaphysics ;  it  is  rather  an  exposition  and  criticism  of 


PREFACE. 


Vll 


our  fundamental  philosophical  concepts.  And,  whatever  the 
value  of  the  results  reached  may  be,  I  am  convinced  that 
the  progress  of  philosophy,  for  some  time  to  come,  must 
lie  in  this  direction. 

Among  the  various  idols  mentioned  by  Bacon,  the  idols 
of  the  cave,  or  den,  are  those  which  are  most  likely  to  influ- 
ence students.  The  loneliness  of  the  study  and  its  distance 
from  practical  effort  enable  such  idols  to  practise  their  ma- 
lign seductions  with  eminent  success.  Hume,  also,  has  told 
us  how,  after  a  social  chat,  or  a  game  of  backgammon  with 
a  friend,  his  speculations  seemed  to  him  to  be  so  cold  and 
strained  as  to  be,  not  merely  unacceptable,  but  almost  unin- 
telligible. So  great  is  the  power  of  the  den.  Whether  in 
the  views  herewith  presented  I  have  grasped  any  truth ;  or 
whether,  by  long  brooding  in  solitude,  I  have  fallen  a  prey 
to  some  idol  of  the  speculative  den,  must  be  left  to  the 
reader  to  decide.  I  am  encouraged,  however,  to  hope  that  I 
have  not  gone  wholly  astray  by  the  fact  that  there  is  noth- 
ing unheard-of  in  the  results  reached.  Leibnitz  furnishes 
the  starting-point,  Herbart  supplies  the  method,  and  the 
conclusions  reached  are  essentially  those  of  Lotze.  I  have 
reached  them,  for  the  most  part,  by  strictly  independent  re- 
flection ;  but,  so  far  as  their  character  is  concerned,  there 
would  be  no  great  misrepresentation  in  calling  them  Lotzian. 
So  much  concerning  pedigree. 

The  speculative  significance  of  theism  and  of  freedom  has 
been  especially  emphasized  in  these  pages.  Of  late  years, 
the  impression  has  widely  prevailed  that  the  belief  in  God 
and  freedom  exists  only  by  sufferance,  so  that  if  logic  were 
allowed  to  have  its  way,  this  belief  would  soon  be  beyond 
the  reach  of  hope  and  mercy.  Not  sharing  this  convic- 


viii  PREFACE. 

tion,  although  it  is  said  to  have  the  fullest  endorsement 
of  the  spirit  of  the  times,  I  have  rather  sought  to  show  that 
the  truth  of  this  belief  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  all 
philosophy  and  rational  science.  This  has  been  done,  how- 
ever, from  a  purely  speculative  interest,  and  not  with  refer- 
ence to  the  ethical  and  religious  bearings  of  the  question. 
These  must  be  considered  by  themselves.  But  while  specu- 
lative discussions  must  not  be  confused  by  irrelevant  practi- 
cal issues,  I  may  add,  even  at  the  risk  of  another  disagree- 
ment with  the  spirit  of  the  times,  that  neither  reflection  nor 
observation  enables  me  to  regard  an  indifference  to  moral 
and  religious  interests  as  the  supreme  proof  of  mental  power 
or  even  of  philosophic  impartiality.  "  Gallio  cared  for  none 
of  those  things,"  and  was  not  the  most  just  of  judges  after 
all. 

I  have  divided  the  work  into  three  parts,  whose  titles  are 
strongly  suggestive  of  the  ancient  scholastic  treatises  on 
metaphysics.  But  the  resemblance  does  not  go  beyond  the 
titles;  and  these  have  been  used  as  indicating  better  than 
any  others  the  natural  divisions  of  the  subject.  Ontology, 
or  existence  in  general ;  cosmology,  or  cosmical  existence  and 
processes ;  and  psychology,  or  psychical  existence  and  proc- 
esses, are  the  divisions  which  reflection  upon  experience 
immediately  suggests.  Of  course,  it  is  not  expected  to  reach 
a  knowledge  of  details  by  the  way  of  speculation,  but  only 
to  reach  an  outline-conception  of  reality  which  shall  be 
valid  for  all  details,  and  within  which  all  specific  study 
must  be  carried  on. 

BOEDEN  P.  BOWSE. 

BOSTON,  January,  1882. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION 1 

Definition  and  Function  of  Metaphysics,  p.  1. — Sceptical  Objections 
Considered;  and  Nature  of  Knowledge  Defined,  p.  5. — Locke  and 
Kant's  Conception  of  Philosophical  Method  Criticised,  p.  13. — Philos- 
ophy Distinguished  from  Psychology,  p.  13.— Causes  and  Grounds  of 
Belief  Distinguished,  p.  15. — Method  Employed,  p.  18. — Grounds  of 
the  Popular  Scepticism  of  Philosophy,  p.  19. 


PART  I. 
ONTOLOGY. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE   NOTION    OF   BEING 


Pure  Being  a  Logical  Abstraction  and  Impossible  in  Reality,  p.  28.  — 
Pure  Being  Explains  Nothing,  p.  33.  —  Action  the  only  Mark  of  Being, 
p.  39.  —  Doctrine  of  Inherence,  p.  46.  —  Power  an  Abstraction,  p.  48.  — 
Unity  of  Being,  p.  5G. 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE   NATURE   OF   THINGS  .....         59 

Terms  Defined,  p.  59.  —  Nature  not  Found  in  Sense-qualities,  p.  61.  — 
Ilerbart  Criticised,  p.  63.  —  Meaning  of  Quality,  p.  64.  —  Qualities  in 
General  cannot  Express  the  Nature  of  a  Thing,  p.  65.  —  Nature  of  a 
Thing  Found  in  the  Law  of  its  Activity,  p.  68.  —  Approximations  to 
this  View  in  the  History  of  Speculation,  p.  71. 


x  CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER  III. 

PAGE 

CHANGE   AND   BECOMING 77 

Change  Defined,  p.  78. — Objections  to  Change  Considered,  p.  80. — Her- 
aclitic  Notion  of  Being  as  Perpetual  Flow,  p.  82. — Attempts  to  Recon- 
cile Change  and  Identity :  Popular  View,  Physicists'  View,  Herbart's 
View,  p.  85. — Meaning  of  Sameness,  p.  89. — A  Changing  Thing  a 
Series  of  Different  Things,  p.  92.— Identity  Found  only  in  Conscious- 
ness, p.  97. — Objections,  p.  97. 

CHAPTER  IY. 

ACTION   AND   INTERACTION 101 

Meaning  of  Causation,  p.  102.— Cause  and  Ground  Distinguished,  p.  103. 
— Action  Incomprehensible,  p.  107. — Popular  Explanations  of  Inter- 
action, p.  110. — Attempts  to  Dispense  with  Interaction :  Occasionalism, 
Positivism,  Pre-established  Harmony,  p.  115. — Sceptical  Implications 
of  the  Pre-established  Harmonv,  p.  123. — Impossibility  of  Interaction 
between  Independent  Things,  and  Necessity  of  a  Unitary  World- 
ground,  p.  125. 

CHAPTER  Y. 

THE   FINITE   AND   THE   INFINITE    ....    132 

The  Infinite  not  Substance,  but  Cause,  p.  133.— The  Finite  not  a  Mode 
or  Part  of  the  Infinite,  but  an  Act  or  Creation,  p.  134. — The  Nature  or 
Purpose  of  the  Infinite  the  Sole  Determining  Ground  of  the  Finite,  p. 
138.— Truth  itself  Dependent  on  the  Infinite,  p.  HI. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   NATURE   OF   THE   INFINITE    ....    146 

An  Apriori  Cosmology  Impossible,  p.  148. — Spinoza,  Schelling,  Hegel, 
and  Spencer  Criticised,  p.  148. — Mechanism  and  Teleology,  p.  157. — 
Unity  of  the  Infinite  Incompatible  with  Necessity,  p.  162. — Mind  in 
the  Cosmos  as  Real  as  Mind  in  Man,  p.  164. — Sceptical  Implications  of 
all  Systems  of  Necessity,  p.  165. — Relation  of  Freedom  to  Intelligence, 
p.  169. 


CONTESTS.  xi 

PAET  II. 
COSMOLOGY. 

CHAPTER  I. 

SPACE 177 

Three  Views  of  Space,  p.  170.— Space  if  Real  must  be  Active,  p.  182.— 
Reality  of  Space  Implies  a  Dualism  of  Fundamental  Being,  p.  18G. — 
Reality  of  Space  Incompatible  with  the  Unity  of  the  Infinite,  p.  188. — 
Space  as  an  Order  of  Relations,  p.  190. — Relations  Necessarily  Sub- 
jective, p.  191. — Subjectivity  of  Space  Expounded  and  Defended,  p. 
194. — Doctrine  of  n  Dimensions  of  Space,  p.  208. 

CHAPTER  II. 

TIME 217 

No  Proper  Intuition  of  Time,  p.  217. — Popular  Views  of  Time  Inconsist- 
ent, p.  219. — Resting  Time  and  Flowing  Time  alike  Contradictory,  p. 
220.— Subjectivity  of  Time  Expounded,  p.  224.— Change  Independent 
of  Time,  p.  228. — Difference  between  Past  and  Future,  p.  233. — The 
Subjective  View  Criticised,  p.  235. — Compromise  between  the  Subjective 
and  the  Popular  View,  p.  237. 

CHAPTER   III. 

MOTION 24:2 

Traditional  Fallacies,  p.  243.— Relation  of  Motion  to  Reality,  p.  245. — 
Law  of  Continuity,  p.  249. — Proofs  of  the  First  Law  of  Motion  Con- 
sidered, p.  254. — Paradox  in  the  Popular  View  of  Motion,  p.  258. — 
Law  of  Inertia  a  Necessity  of  System,  p.  263. — Second  and  Third 
Laws  of  Motion  Examined,  p.  2G5. — Principle  of  Least  Action,  p.  269. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

MATTER   AND   FORCE 273 

Various  Conceptions  of  the  Atoms,  p.  275. — Strengtli  and  Weakness  of 
the  Corpuscular  Theory,  p.  277. — Transmutation  of  Matter,  p.  284. — 
Forces  of  the  Atoms  no  Fixed  Properties,  but  Expressions  of  Atomic 
Relations,  p.  286. — Laws  of  Force-variation  ;  Space  no  Ground  there- 
for, p.  292. — Action  at  a  Distance  both  Necessary  and  Absurd,  p.  298. — 
Atomic  Theory  a  Device  of  Method,  and  not  an  Ontological  Fact,  p.  302. 


xii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  Y. 

TAOK 

THE   COSMOS   AS   MECHziNISM        ....    305 

Various  Conceptions  of  Mechanism,  p.  307. — Mechanism  as  Materialism, 
p.  308. — Mechanism  as  a  Principle  of  Method,  p.  312.  —  Limits  of 
Mechanism,  p.  314. — All  Inorganic  Phenomena  Mechanical,  p.  322. — 
Mechanical  Theory  of  Life  and  its  Difficulties,  p.  32G.— Vitalism  and 
its  Difficulties,  p.  334. — Subject  of  the  Apparent  Mental  Life  of  Animals, 
p.  33G.  

PART  III. 
PSYCHOLOGY. 

CHAPTER  I. 
THE  SOUL 349 

Difficulties  of  Materialism,  p.  3f>3. — Materialism  Unclear  in  its  Meaning, 
p.  35G. — A  Unitary  Mental  Subject  Necessary  to  Thought,  Conscious- 
ness, and  Memory,  p.  3G2. — Kant's  Objection  to  Rational  Psychology 
Considered,  p.  372. — Monism  Untenable,  p.  37G. — Materialistic  Theory 
of  Knowledge,  p.  38G.  —  Materialism  a  System  of  Pre-established 
Harmony,  p.  387. —Natural  Selection  in  Belief,  p.  380.  —  Sceptical 
Outcome  of  Materialism,  p.  39G. 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE   PROCESS   OF   KNOWING 403 

Perception  an  Active  Process,  p.  405. — Immediate  Perception,  p.  410. — 
Sensation,  p.  413. — Relation  of  the  Physical  and  the  Mental  Series,  p. 
41G. — Improbable  that  every  Mental  State  has  a  Corresponding  Phys- 
ical State,  p.  421. — Memory  Inexplicable  by  any  Theory,  p.  424. — 
Thinking  Distinguished  from  Sensibility,  p.  432. — Space  as  a  Mental 
Principle,  p.  436. — Deductions  of  Space  from  Experience,  p.  437. — 
Elements  of  the  Pre-established  Harmony  involved  in  Perception, 
p.  448. 

CHAPTER  III. 

REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND   PHENOMENALISM     .       .    450 

Misconceptions  of  Idealism,  p.  451. — Attempted  Disproofs  of  Idealism, 
p.  454. — Bearing  of  Personal  Co- existence  on  Idealism,  p.  45G. — 
Grounds  of  Objective  Certainty  Ethical,  p.  457. — Idealism  cannot  Rest 


CONTENTS.  xJii 

on  the  Process  of  Perception,  but  only  on  an  Analysis  of  the  Product 
of  Perception,  p.  458. — Analysis  of  the  Object  in  Perception,  p.  4GI. — 
Both  Primary  and  Secondary  Qualities  Subjective,  p.  4G1. — Difficulties 
in  Berkeley's  View,  p.  4GS. — Absolute  Idealism,  p.  483. 

CHAPTER   IY. 

APKIORISM   AND    EMPIRICISM         .       .       .       .488 

Question  Double:  Source  of  Faculty  and  Warrant  of  Belief,  p.  400. — 
Misconceptions  of  Apriorism,  p.  494. — Source  of  Faculty  Discussed, 
p.  499. — Data  of  Empiricism  Indefinite,  p.  500. — Empiricist's  Claim 
Examined,  p.  505. — Mental  Principles  Involved  in  Experience,  p.  505. 
— Warrant  of  Belief  Discussed,  p.  512. — First  Principles  Admit  of  no 
Deduction,  p.  516. — Attempts  to  Deduce  Rational  Truth  Examined,  p. 
520.— Apriorism  Criticised,  p.  527. 

CONCLUSION  .  .  531 


METAPHYSICS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

PHILOSOPHY,  as  a  special  form  of  mental  activity,  seeks  to 
answer  these  two  questions :  How  is  knowledge  possible  ? 
What  is  the  true  nature  of  reality?  The  h'rst  question 
deals  with  the  knowing  subject  and  his  relation  to  the  ob- 
ject. The  aim  is  to  give  an  exposition  and  a  theory  of  the 
knowing  process  and  to  unfold  its  implications.  The  sec- 
ond question  deals  with  the  nature  of  the  object  viewed  as 
a  thing  in  itself.  The  first  question  belongs  to  the  theory 
of  knowledge ;  the  second  belongs  to  metaphysics. 

By  metaphysics,  then,  we  do  not  mean  philosophy  in  gen- 
eral, but  an  inquiry  into  the  nature  and  laws  of  reality.  But 
the  task  thus  set  needs  further  limitation ;  for  all  the  ob- 
jective sciences  arg  trying  to  solve  the  same  problem  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree.  To  limit  the  problem,  we  offer  the 
following  exposition :  Consciousness  reveals  two  orders  of 
mental  action — an  order  of  impressions  and  an  order  of  rea- 
son. The  former  order  is  determined  partly  from  without 
and  partly  by  the  laws  of  association.  The  latter  order  is 
determined  from  within  by  the  laws  of  thought  itself. 
Xow  the  constant  effort  of  thought  is  to  reduce  the  order 
of  impressions  to  the  order  of  thought,  or  to  rationalize  its 
sense-experiences.  It  reaches  this  result  by  building  its  sen- 
sations into  a  thought-system  according  to  certain  rational 
1 


2  METAPHYSICS. 

principles.  The  impressions  are  referred  to  things  as  their 
causes,  and  are  objectified  as  qualities  of  those  things. 
These  causes,  again,  are  viewed  as  distributed  in  a  common 
space,  as  continuous  and  changing  in  a  common  time,  and 
as  acting  upon  one  another.  Impressions  are  rationalized 
by  bringing  into  them  the  principles  of  being,  cause,  con- 
tinuity, change,  space,  time,  number,  etc.  These  principles 
constitute  the  framework  of  knowledge.  No  matter  how 
we  reach  them,  whether  they  be  acquired  by  experience  or 
be  reached  by  the  native  insight  of  the  mind,  they  are  still 
the  framework  of  our  mental  system,  and  without  them 
thought  would  collapse.  But  primarily  these  notions  are 
purely  formal ;  they  are  categories  of  thought  rather  than 
of  reality.  Yet  if  knowledge  be  possible,  these  notions 
must  have  a  significance  for  reality  also.  If  the  laws  and 
categories  of  our  thinking  have  no  meaning  for  things,  then 
our  so-called  knowledge  would  be  only  a  fiction  in  our  own 
minds,  and  could  never  attain  to  things  in  themselves. 
This  was  the  view  which  Kant  took.  The  categories  were 
restricted  to  a  purely  subjective  significance  with  a  double 
result.  Knowledge  was  limited  to  phenomena;  and  reality 
itself  was  dissolved  in  subjective  idealism.  The  problem 
of  metaphysics  is  to  determine  the  content  of  these  fun- 
damental notions  when  applied  to  reality.  It  is  not  to  ex- 
amine the  individual  peculiarities  of  things,  but  only  those 
general  notions  which  enter  into  our  conception  of  reality. 
We  may  say,  then,  that  metaphysics  begins  where  the  sci- 
ences leave  off.  The  physicist  reduces  all  physical  phe- 
nomena to  special  cases  of  the  redistribution  of  matter  and 
motion.  Matter  and  force,  change  and  motion,  space  and 
time  are  the  ideas  employed  in  the  reduction.  But  the 
physicist  feels  no  call  to  analyze  and  define  these  notions. 
He  takes  them  for  granted,  and  applies  them  without  sus- 
picion. Such  notions  as  these  constitute  the  natural  meta- 
physics of  the  human  mind ;  and  both  common-sense  and 
natural  science  are  hardly  willing  to  allow  that  any  ques- 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

tion  can  be  raised  concerning  either  the  meaning  or  the 
validity  of  these  notions.  But  the  history  of  thought  shows 
that  they  need  both  criticism  and  rectification.  This  is  the 
task  of  metaphysics. 

Our  knowledge  of  anatomy  is  mainly  the  product  of  dis- 
ease. Kerves  reveal  themselves  and  their  functions  by  dis- 
ordered action.  In  like  manner,  philosophy  is  mainly  a 
product  of  mental  disease.  The  attempt  to  harmonize  the 
mind  with  itself  is  the  great  source  of  philosophical  knowl- 
edge and  advance.  Both  the  process  and  the  product  of 
knowledge  seem  so  clear  that,  if  no  discord  had  appeared 
in  our  mental  life,  a  proposition  to  examine  them  would 
have  seemed  like  a  proposition  to  explain  the  self-evident, 
which  admits  of  no  explanation.  The  mind  is  so  objective 
in  its  procedure  that  nothing  but  the  most  pronounced 
mental  discord  serves  to  awaken  even  the  suspicion  that 
things  are  not  what  they  seem,  and  that  its  fundamental 
notions  may  need  a  more  careful  definition.  But  experi- 
ence serves  to  awaken  scepticism.  Our  fundamental  no- 
tions are  always  loosely  and  often  contradictorily  conceived 
in  spontaneous  thought.  Our  practical  thinking  is  moulded 
by  practical  needs,  and  hence  we  never  spontaneously  give 
any  greater  precision  to  our  ideas  than  practice  calls  for. 
But  when  these  conceptions  are  put  into  theories  and  their 
content  is  logically  developed,  or  when  they  are  extended 
beyond  their  original  application,  then  the  results  of  the 
looseness  become  very  apparent.  Difficulties  and  contra- 
dictions emerge;  and  reason  itself  seems  swamped  in  in- 
consistency. Here  is  a  great  source  of  theoretical  errors. 
Some  notion,  or  notions,  which  are  accurate  enough  for 
daily  life,  are  picked  up  without  any  criticism  and  devel- 
oped to  their  utmost  logical  consequences.  In  this  way, 
their  slight  parallax  with  reality  is  magnified  until  the  re- 
sult is  some  grotesque  absurdity  or  some  pernicious  un- 
truth. The  notion  of  substance  is  a  capital  example  of  the 
difficulties  implicit  in  the  metaphysics  of  common-sense. 


4  METAPHYSICS. 

Formally,  substance  is  that  which  has  or  supports  qualities ; 
it  is  the  real  and  the  constant  in  change,  etc.  But  this 
formal  outline  gets  filled  up  in  various  ways.  Our  sense- 
experience  seems  to  give  us  things  which  abide  through  all 
change  of  activity  and  attribute,  and  which  also  exist  with- 
out any  activity  whatever.  Hence  we  often  conceive  of 
substance  as  something  inert  and  dead ;  and  we  fail  to  see 
that  such  substance  could  do  nothing  and  explain  nothing, 
not  even  our  knowledge  of  itself.  But  we  are  not  long  in 
finding  that  there  are  activities  in  the  world;  and  these 
must  have  some  subject.  Then,  without  a  thought  of  the 
inconsistency,  we  refer  them  to  the  same  things  which  at 
other  times  \ve  view  as  inert  and  dead.  Thus  the  inactive 
is  made  the  source  and  support  of  various  activities.  Again, 
we  think  of  the  substance  as  unchanged  through  all  changes 
of  attribute;  and  this  produces  another  difficulty.  The 
substance  as  changeless  contains  no  explanation  of  the 
changing  attributes;  and  these,  in  turn,  no  longer  reveal 
the  true  nature  of  the  substance.  Thus  the  substance  re- 
treats behind  the  appearance  as  an  impenetrable  mystery ; 
and  the  appearance,  as  unexplained  by  the  substance,  is  no 
longer  any  reason  for  affirming  a  substance.  This  notion 
of  inherence  is  the  root  both  of  the  idle  mystery  of  the 
thing  in  itself  and  of  phenomenalism  in  speculation.  Still 
another  difficulty  arises.  Our  conception  of  substance  is 
formed  largely  from  the  phenomena  of  matter ;  and  thus 
material  substance  becomes  the  type  of  all  substance.  Thus 
we  learn  to  think  of  substance  as  something  behind  activity 
and  not  very  closely  connected  with  it.  But  when  we 
apply  this  conception  to  the  soul  and  God,  there  arises  the 
thought  that  their  living  and  intelligent  activity  is  some- 
thing secondary  and  phenomenal  rather  than  essential. 
Hence  the  soul  is  not  essentially  life  and  intelligence,  and 
the  basal,  essential  fact  of  the  universe  is  the  non-living  and 
unintelligent.  Back  of  the  living  intellectual  outgo,  there 
is  an  impenetrable  core  of  impersonal  mvstery.  Such  are 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

some  of  the  difficulties  in  the  current  notion  of  substance ; 
and  they  arise  entirely  from  picking  up  without  criticism 
the  spontaneous  notions  of  uncritical  thinking.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  develop  the  contradictions  in  the  current  no- 
tions of  cause  and  effect,  space  and  time,  etc. ;  they  will 
appear  in  the  course  of  the  discussion.  Now  it  is  plain, 
we  think,  that  our  fundamental  notions  are  commonly  con- 
ceived with  great  looseness  and  lack  of  precision ;  the  re- 
sulting confusion  is  illustrated  by  the  whole  history  of  phi- 
losophy. The  aberrations  of  philosophy  may  nearly  all  be 
traced  to  misconceptions  of  these  fundamental  notions.  It 
is,  then,  desirable  that  a  special  criticism  and  exposition  of 
these  ideas  should  be  undertaken  with  the  aim  of  making 
them  more  exact  and  of  eliminating  their  contradictions. 
To  do  this,  we  repeat,  is  the  task  of  metaphysics. 

But  is  not  such  a  task  essentially  hopeless  ?  Do  not 
scepticism,  the  critical  philosophy  of  Kant,  and  the  general 
doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  human  knowledge  forbid  such 
an  attempt  ?  At  all  events,  it  seems  as  if  we  should  discuss 
these  questions  before  beginning  our  work.  Our  aim,  we 
said,  is  to  criticise  our  notions  of  reality  and  thus  determine 
the  true  nature  and  connections  of  things.  But  this  as- 
sumes that  our  notions  of  reality  correspond  to  it;  and 
who  shall  assure  us  of  this  correspondence?  These  objec- 
tions seem  very  forcible,  and  demand  consideration. 

In  a  certain  sense  knowledge  is  universally  subjective. 
So  long  as  knowing  means  anything  intelligible,  it  con- 
sists not  in  being  the  thing  known,  but  in  forming  concep- 
tions of  it ;  and  knowledge  consists  in  the  conceptions  thus 
formed.  By  no  possibility  can  the  mind  transcend  its  con- 
ceptions; and  the  object  exists  for  the  mind  only  as  it  is 
conceived.  Hence  a  thing  can  never  be  more  for  the  mind  ' 
than  a  realized  conception.  However  real  the  outer  world 
may  be,  the  mind  can  grasp  that  world  only  through  the 
conception  it  forms  of  it.  But  this  is  no  weakness  of  the 
human  mind  and  no  limitation  of  human  knowledge.  It 


6  METAPHYSICS. 

is  a  necessity  of  all  minds  and  of  all  knowledge,  so  long  as 
knowledge  has  any  articulate  meaning.  In  this  sense,  that 
no  mind  can  transcend  its  conceptions,  all  knowledge  is 
universally  subjective,  and  represents  reality  not  apart  from 
thought,  but  as  it  appears  in  thought.  It  follows  that  the 
demand  to  know  things  in  themselves  is  absurd,  if  by  things 
in  themselves  be  meant  things  out  of  all  relation  to  thought. 
Eeality  as  it  appears  in  thought  may  be  known  ;  but  reality 
as  it  does  not  appear  in  thought  is  unknowable  in  the  nature 
of  the  case.  It  is  a  simple  matter  of  definition  that  that 
which  never  appears  in  thought  can  never  be  grasped  by 
thought.  It  further  follows  that  the  only  rational  aim  of 
the  knowing  mind  must  be  to  find,  not  what  the  real  is 
apart  from  thought,  but  the  universal  predicates  of  the  real 
in  thought ;  that  is,  those  predicates  which  all  thinkers  af- 
firm under  the  same  circumstances.  The  goal  is  reached 
when  we  have  come  to  what  Ferrier  calls  "  the  common  to 
all,"  and  not  merely  "  the  special  to  me."  But  this  "  com- 
mon to  all,"  though  not  dependent  on  my  thought  or  your 
thought,  as  then  it  would  be  special  to  me  or  to  you,  can 
never  be  known  as  independent  of  all  thought,  for  knowl- 
edge can  never  be  of  reality  except  as  it  appears  in  thought. 
This  element  of  universality  is  prominent  in  many  of  our 
perceptions  and  judgments ;  and  spontaneous  thought  seeks 
to  express  it  by  declaring  that  the  thing  exists  as  perceived, 
or  that  the  judgment  is  true  apart  from  all  thought.  Taken 
literally,  this  statement  is  absurd ;  it  is  an  attempt  to  tell 
how  a  thing  appears  when  it  does  not  appear,  or  how 
thoughts  are  related  when  there  are  no  thoughts  to  relate. 
It  is  merely  a  strong  way  of  saying  that  the  results  are 
valid  for  all  and  are  not  subjective  fictions  of  the  individ- 
ual. Finally,  it  follows  that  a  knowledge  of  things  in  them- 
selves can  only  mean  a  knowledge  which  shall  be  univer- 
sally valid.  In  any  other  sense,  the  phrase  has  not  the 
slightest  meaning.  Hence  the  question,  What  is  reality  ? 
reduces  to  this  other  question,  How  must  we  think  about 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

reality?  And  tins,  we  repeat,  is  true  not  only  for  our  in- 
telligence, but  for  all  intelligence.  The  question  of  meta- 
physics, then,  finally  becomes,  How  must  we  think  of  reality? 

But  we  have  not  yet  disposed  of  the  sceptic.  In  spite  of 
the  previous  exposition,  he  objects  that  we  can  never  know 
that  our  conceptions  correspond  to  reality.  Since  we  can 
never  transcend  our  conceptions,  things  in  themselves  may 
be  quite  unlike  our  thought  of  them.  But  here  the  sceptic 
falls  a  prey  to  one  of  the  many  prejudices  of  common-sense. 
For  him  the  undoubted  reality  is  not  the  knowing  subject, 
but  the  things  in  themselves.  In  truth,  however,  things  are 
only  hypotheses  to  explain  our  experience,  and  can  be  ad- 
mitted only  as  they  furnish  such  explanation.  The  thinking 
subject  being  the  starting-point  of  speculation,  and  things 
being  only  hypotheses  to  explain  the  thinker's  experience, 
it  is  plain  that  there  can  never  be  any  reason  for  positing 
realities  unrelated  to  thought.  Such  realities  are  simply  xs, 
which  explain  nothing  and  which  cannot  be  brought  into 
any  articulate  relation  to  our  thought -system.  As  such 
they  are  purely  gratuitous.  A  rational  experience  can 
never  be  any  ground  for  affirming  an  irrational  reality. 
Hence  we  object  to  the  thing  in  itself  in  this  sense  of  some- 
thing which  eludes  all  thought-determinations,  not  that  it  is 
unknowable,  but  that  it  is  rationally  unaffirmable.  Reason 
will  always  repudiate  the  irrational  reality  and  take  refuge 
in  idealism  as  the  more  rational  doctrine. 

In  the  second  place  we  object  to  the  sceptic  that  we  do 
not  know  what  he  means  by  the  "correspondence"  of  our 
conceptions  with  reality.  In  daily  life  we  define  truth  as 
the  correspondence  of  thought  with  thing;  and  the  defini- 
tion is  accurate  enough  for  practical  purposes.  But  taken 
in  strictness,  this  definition  assumes  that  we  can  first  know 
the  thing,  and  then  form  a  conception  of  it,  and  can  finally 
compare  the  thing  as  known  with  our  conception  of  it,  and 
note  their  agreement  or  disagreement.  Nothing  of  the 
kind  is  possible.  The  thing  exists  for  our  thought  only  in 


8  METAPHYSICS. 

and  through  the  conception ;  and  hence  there  can  be  no 
comparison  of  thought  with  thing,  and  hence,  again,  there 
can  be  no  correspondence  of  thought  and  thing.  What  we 
call  comparing  our  thought  with  the  thing  is  always  a  com- 
paring of  one  thought  with  another  thought.  We  change  our 
relations  to  the  thing  with  the  aim  of  seeing  whether  the 
present  conception  will  not  be  displaced  by  another.  When 
it  holds  its  ground,  we  say  it  corresponds  to  the  thing ;  and 
when  another  conception  displaces  it,  we  say  that  it  did  not 
correspond  to  the  thing.  But  the  mind  can  never  transcend 
its  conceptions  so  as  to  grasp  things  other  than  through  its 
conceptions ;  and  hence  truth  cannot  be  viewed  as  the  cor- 
respondence of  thought  and  thing,  but  as  the  universally 
valid  in  our  thought  of  the  thing.  That  is  the  true  con- 
ception of  reality  which  grasps  the  "common  to  all"  and 
not  the  "special  to  me."  Hence,  when  the  sceptic  asks 
how  we  know  that  our  conceptions  correspond  to  things, 
he  shows  that  he  is  a  slave  to  the  prejudices  of  uncritical 
thinking.  First  he  assumes  that  things  rather  than  thought 
are  certain,  and  next  he  assumes  the  possibility  of  tran- 
scending our  conceptions.  Both  of  these  assumptions  in- 
dicate a  somewhat  unprogressive  type  of  intellect. 

It  being  absurd  to  demand  that  the  mind  shall  transcend 
its  conceptions  and  compare  them  with  reality,  it  follows 
that  the  test  of  knowledge  must  be  found  in  the  content  of 
knowledge  itself.  Ultimately  this  test  will  consist  (1)  in 
the  self-evidence  or  necessity  of  the  conception,  and  (2)  in 
the  inner  harmony  of  our  conceptions  with  one  another. 
When  a  conception  is  self-evident  or  necessary,  and  when 
no  mental  discord  results  from  it,  we  have  the  only  test  of 
knowledge  possible  to  any  intelligence  whatever.  A  scep- 
ticism based  on  the  impossibility  of  transcending  our  con- 
ceptions is  not  so  much  wanton  and  gratuitous  as  essentially 
absurd.  Again,  scepticism  to  be  rational  must  be  based  on 
reasons.  In  this  respect  the  sceptic  is  subject  to  the  same 
demand  for  proof  as  every  other  theorist.  The  sceptic's 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

claim  is  always  that  some  proposition  is  doubtful.  But  the 
mere  fact  that  he  doubts  is  in  itself  no  argument.  To  raise 
his  doubt  from  a  merely  subjective  value  to  a  rational  sig- 
nificance, he  must  support  his  doubt  by  definite  arguments. 
Yet  throughout  the  history  of  speculation  there  has  been  a 
tacit  assumption  by  the  sceptic  that  his  doubt  itself  consti- 
tutes an  argument.  This  claim  the  critic  must  reject,  and 
force  the  sceptic  to  take  his  place  with  other  theorists,  and 
give  reasons  for  the  unfaith  which  is  in  him.  Both  faith 
and  unfaith,  as  subjective  facts,  are  without  rational  signifi- 
cance ;  they  acquire  this  only  through  the  grounds  by  which 
they  are  justified.  The  only  scepticism,  then,  of  our  funda- 
mental notions  which  merits  any  attention  is  that  which 
aims  to  show  that  they  are  discordant  among  themselves. 
But  this  scepticism  can  arise  only  at  the  end  of  investiga- 
tion, and  not  at  the  beginning.  For  before  our  conceptions 
of  reality  are  declared  discordant  we  must  find  out  what 
they  are  and  determine  their  exact  meaning.  The  presence 
of  discord  in  loose,  unreflective  thinking  is  no  ground  for 
general  scepticism.  Correct  thinking  does  not  come  by 
nature.  The  discord  becomes  significant  only  when  the  re- 
flective reason  has  declared  it  irreducible.  Hence  sceptical 
doubts  of  the  validity  of  knowledge  cannot  be  settled  in  ad- 
vance ;  but  only  after  the  reflective  reason  has  determined 
what  the  mind  really  says.  If  careful  analysis  and  defini- 
tion fail  to  eliminate  the  discord  and  contradiction,  then 
scepticism  may  begin.  Yet  even  then  the  sceptic  assumes 
some  knowledge  of  reality.  He  assumes  (1)  the  continuity 
of  reality,  and  (2)  the  universal  validity  of  the  thought-laws 
of  identity  and  contradiction.  His  argument  from  discord- 
ant conceptions  to  their  parallax  with  the  fact  rests  entirely 
upon  the  assumption  that  reality  is  and  must  be  consistent. 
If  it  might  possibly  be  inconsistent,  inconsistency  in  our 
conceptions  Would  be  no  proof  of  opposition  to  the  fact ; 
and  a  pair  of  contradictions  might  express  the  inmost  essence 
of  reality.  Again,  if  we  allow  that  reality  need  not  be  con- 


10  METAPHYSICS. 

tinuous,  then  our  discordant  conceptions  might  be  viewed 
as  conceptions  of  different  realities,  and  hence  their  discord 
•would  lose  all  significance.  Different  views  of  different 
things  are  allowable ;  only  contradictory  views  of  the  same 
thing  are  obnoxious  to  reason.  Now  if  the  attempt  to 
rectify  our  notions,  so  as  to  make  them  adequate  and  con- 
sistent, should  be  successful,  the  rational  ground  for  scepti- 
cism would  disappear,  and  the  question  would  need  no  sep- 
arate discussion.  Without  doubt  there  is  much  that  is 
purely  subjective  in  our  conceptions.  The  world  as  it  exists 
for  sense  is  unlike  the  world  as  it  exists  for  thought.  Since 
the  time  of  Democritus,  the  world  has  been  familiar  witli 
the  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary  qualities. 
Hence,  before  the  question  of  the  validity  of  our  conceptions 
can  be  discussed  to  advantage,  we  must,  by  analysis  and 
criticism,  separate  the  special  from  the  universal  element  in 
knowledge.  To  treat  the  question  before  making  such 
analysis  is  to  open  the  way  to  endless  paralogism  and  logical 
inconsequence.  On  all  these  accounts,  therefore,  we  hold 
that  the  question  of  scepticism  is  second,  and  not  first. 

So  far  as  the  Kantian  and  relativist  doctrines  are  identical 
with  those  of  the  sceptic,  they  are  considered  in  the  previ- 
ous paragraphs.  No  speculator  is  entitled  to  consideration 
by  the  doubts  he  expresses,  but  only  by  those  which  he 
rationally  justifies.  The  disciples  of  relativity  in  thought 
have  always  been  haunted  by  the  fancy  that  the  mind  must 
be  able  to  transcend  its  conceptions  in  order  to  reach  abso- 
lute knowledge;  and  as  we  are  shut  up  within  the  limits  of 
our  conceptions,  our  knowledge  is  only  relative,  and  hence 
is  valid  only  for  us.  But  we  have  already  seen  that  this 
conception  of  absolute  knowledge  is  essentially  absurd ;  be- 
cause to  know  is  never  to  be  the  thing,  but  only  to  form 
conceptions  of  it  which  shall  be  valid  for  all  intelligence. 
We  have  here  the  same  crude  assumption  which  appears  in 
the  sceptic's  arguments.  Thought  is  assumed  to  be  second 
in  knowledge,  and  not  first ;  and  then  being  is  allowed  to 


INTRODUCTION.  \\ 

challenge  thought  to  know  it.  But  in  knowledge,  being  is 
second  and  thought  is  first.  Being  appears  as  an  hypothesis, 
or  as  posited  by  thought  to  explain  our  rational  experience. 
But  we  should  explain  nothing  if  we  posited  something  out 
of  all  relation  to  intelligence,  or  which  cannot  be  grasped 
by  intelligence.  We  should  have  merely  the  form  of  affir- 
mation, and  perhaps  a  swelling  sound,  but  both  would  be 
empty  of  the  slightest  substance.  We  object,  then,  to  the 
absolute  which  eludes  all  rational  determination  as  we  did 
to  the  thing  in  itself,  not  that  it  is  unknowable,  but  that  it 
is  rationally  unaffirraable.  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  proof 
of  its  existence  can  never  be  forthcoming.  Thought,  then, 
though  subjective,  may  comprehend  being,  because  the  latter 
must  admit  of  rational  determination,  if  it  is  to  be  affirmed 
at  all. 

Again,  we  have  seen  that  the  subjectivity  of  knowledge 
is  true  for  all  intelligence,  and  does  not  hinder  that  there 
may  be  a  universal  element  in  knowledge  so  that  we  may 
grasp  the  common  to  all  as  well  as  the  special  to  us.  In- 
deed, the  relativist's  argument,  if  good  for  anything,  would 
apply,  first  of  all,  to  our  certainty  that  knowledge  has  any 
validity  beyond  the  individual.  It  would  limit  the  knower 
strictly  to  what  is  special  to  himself.  It  is  impossible  to 
stop  with  the  maxim  that  man  is  the  measure  of  all  things ; 
we  must  go  on  to  the  affirmation  that  every  one  makes  his 
own  truth  and  error.  But  if  we  may  transcend  our  own 
individuality  in  knowing,  and  discern  the  common  to  all 
men,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  might  not  discern  the  com- 
mon to  all  intelligence.  Whether  this  detection  of  the  uni- 
versal is  possible  can  be  decided  only  by  an  appeal  to  con- 
sciousness, or  by  an  inspection  of  the  content  of  knowledge. 
If  such  inspection  reveal  the  presence  of  universal  elements, 
or  of  elements  which  claim  to  be  universal,  it  will  then  be 
the  duty  of  the  relativist  to  bring  reasons  for  limiting  this 
universality.  He  must  justify  his  doubt,  if  it  is  to  have  any 
significance^  The  mere  assurance  of  one  speculator  is  as 


12  METAPHYSICS. 

good  as  that  of  another,  and  counts  for  nothing  in  any  case. 
The  general  subjectivity  of  knowledge  is  no  reason,  as  that 
\vonld  still  be  true,  even  if  knowledge  were  universally 
valid.  But  the  argument  with  the  relativist  cannot  begin 
until  we  have  first  separated  the  universal  from  the  special. 
It  cannot,  then,  precede  metaphysics,  but  must  follow. 

Moreover,  if  it  were  true  that  our  conceptions  are  valid 
only  for  human  thought,  there  would  still  be  need  of  meta- 
physical discussion.  One  great  spring  of  philosophic  study 
is  the  need  of  bringing  the  mind  into  harmony  with  itself. 
Mental  discord  and  contradiction  we  cannot  endure.  It  is 
not  the  lack  of  harmony  between  our  conceptions  and  real- 
ity which  disturbs  us.  but  their  discord  among  themselves. 
Hence,  until  our  thought-life  ceases,  there  will  always  be  an 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  mind  to  bring  its  conceptions 
into  a  consistent  system.  Our  conceptions  may  be  purely 
phenomenal ;  but  none  the  less  will  the  mind  demand  that 
they  be  harmonized  with  one  another.  The  importance  and 
the  justification  of  metaphysics  are  not  dependent,  there- 
fore, on  the  falsehood  of  the  philosophy  of  relativity.  Meta- 
physics finds  its  warrant  in  the  mental  demand  for  harmony 
in  thought.  ISow  these  fundamental  notions  of  being, 
cause,  change,  space,  time,  etc.,  do  enter  into  our  thinking, 
such  as  it  is;  and  we  are  justified  in  asking  what  meaning 
they  have  in  reflective  thought.  "When  we  use  these  terms, 
we  ought  to  mean  something,  and  it  must  be  possible  to 
tell  what  we  mean.  But  we  have  seen  that  these  words 
are  often  used  without  any  definite  or  consistent  meaning. 
Apart,  then,  from  any  question  of  universal  validity,  we 
must  seek  to  bring  the  mind  into  harmony  with  itself ;  and 
•we  can  do  this  only  by  rendering  these  fundamental  no- 
tions more  precise,  and  by  so  determining  their  content  that 
they  shall  be  consistent  with  one  another,  and  equal  to  the 
function  they  perform  in  our  thought-system. 

But,  granting  the  admissibility  of  the  problem,  how  shall 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

it  be  solved  ?  Locke  claimed  that  philosophical  study  must 
begin  with  an  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  our  ideas.  If  we 
would  know  what  our  ideas  are  worth,  we  must  know  how 
we  came  by  them.  Kant  also  taught  that  a  criticism  of  the 
faculty  and  process  of  knowing  must  precede  metaphysics. 
At  present,  when  philosophy  is  identified  with  empirical 
psychology,  if  not  with  physiology,  any  other  method  seems 
entirely  hopeless.  We  ought  to  begin,  then,  with  psycho- 
logical investigation,  giving  due  attention  to  the  marvels 
of  the  associational  psychology,  if  we  hope  to  reach  any 
sound  conclusion.  In  spite  of  this  recommendation,  how- 
ever, we  regard  this  method  as  utterly  inverted  and  worth- 
less. The  origin  and  history  of  an  idea  do  not  decide  its 
significance  and  validity  after  it  has  arisen.  Its  validity 
must  be  determined  solely  by  its  content  and  by  the  self- 
evidence  with  which  that  content  is  thought.  Thus  the 
genesis  of  the  space-idea  decides  nothing  as  to  the  truths  of 
geometry.  This  idea  may  have  a  history  which  the  psychol- 
ogist can  clearly  trace,  and  it  may  be  conditioned  by  a  vari- 
ety of  physiological  factors ;  but,  still,  this  genesis  does  not 
help  us  to  decide  as  to  the  validity  of  geometrical  truth. 
This  must  be  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  propositions 
and  by  the  self-evidence  of  their  content.  The  same  is  true 
for  the  idea  of  number.  This  idea  may  be  slowly  devel- 
oped, and  may  be  developed  only  under  certain  conditions 
which  psychology  may  discover.  But  the  truth  of  numer- 
ical relations  is,  in  every  case,  independent  of  the  psycholog- 
ical processes  by  which  we  come  to  recognize  them.  The 
principles  of  causation  and  the  continuity  of  being  may  also 
be  long  in  winning  recognition ;  the  ideas  may  be  of  slow 
growth  ;  but  when  the  ideas  come,  their  validity  can  be  de- 
cided only  by  reflection  on  their  content,  and  the  evidence 
with  which  they  appeal  to  the  mind.  After  a  belief  is  found 
to  be  groundless,  then  the  psychological  account  of  its  ori- 
gin is  in  order,  and  has  a  certain  interest ;  but  before  this 
time  it  is  philosophically  irrelevant.  Misconception  on  this 


14  METAPHYSICS. 

point  is  as  common  among  the  intuitionists  as  among  the 
empiricists.  The  former  think  that  a  proposition  is  placed 
forever  beyond  the  reach  of  attack  when  it  is  shown  to  be 
innate ;  as  if  the  innate  must  certainly  be  true.  Indeed, 
the  empiricists  themselves  agree  with  the  intuitionists  on 
this  point.  Mill,  in  his  "  Examination  of  Hamilton,"  admits 
the  infallibility  of  primitive  beliefs,  but  raises  doubts  as  to 
what  beliefs  are  truly  primitive.  He  thinks  that  if  we  could 
look  into  the  mind  of  the  baby,  as  it  lies  in  the  nurse's  arms, 
we  should  get  the  original  philosophic  revelation.  Others, 
again,  haunted  by  the  notion  of  heredity  and  evolution,  are 
at  a  loss  whether  to  look  for  this  original  element  in  the 
first  polyp  or  in  the  primal  star- dust;  but  all  alike  are 
agreed  that,  if  we  could  reach  it,  we  should  get  at  indispu- 
table truth.  But  this  is  plainly  a  mistake.  It  is  not  self- 
evident  that  the  innate  must  be  true.  It  is  not  self-evident 
that  the  baby,  or  the  polyp,  or  the  ancient  star-dust  is  a 
spring  of  pure  and  undefiled  knowledge.  Hence,  after  a 
proposition  has  been  shown  to  be  innate,  the  question  of  its 
truth  remains  open ;  and  this  question  can  be  answered  only 
by  looking  away  from  the  psychological  question  of  origin 
to  the  philosophic  question  of  the  grounds  of  the  belief. 
Indeed,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  doctrine  so  out  of  har- 
mony with  every  one  of  the  current  tendencies  of  thought 
tJsaff^-this  one,  which  seeks  for  truth  in  the  raw  rudiments 
of  consciousness  rather  than  in  its  full  manifestation.  Ev- 
ery conception  of  progress,  every  form  of  evolution,  every 
analogy  of  nature  point  rather  to  the  opposite  view — namely, 
that  our  faculties  are  most  trustworthy  in  their  developed 
form,  and  not  in  their  crude  beginnings.  In  short,  if  there 
is  to  be  any  knowledge  and  any  philosophy,  it  must  be  on 
the  basis  of  our  faculties  as  they  are.  Even  the  empirical 
philosophy  is  not  so  self-evident  as  to  dispense  with  proof ; 
and  its  truth  or  falsehood  can  be  determined  only  by  an  ap- 
peal to  the  reason  that  is  now  in  us,  no  matter  how  it  got 
there.  It  may  be  that  empiricism,  strictly  constructed,  casts 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

doubt  on  the  reason  to  which  appeal  is  made,  but  the  sys- 
tem itself  cannot  allow  this  without  self-destruction.  If, 
then,  the  empiricist  or  associationalist  is  not  to  play  the 
part  of  the  utter  sceptic,  he  must  admit  that  the  validity 
of  a  doctrine  is  not  to  be  tested  by  its  genesis,  but  by  its 
grounds.  But  if  he  should  choose  to  play  the  sceptic,  then 
his  scepticism  must  be  extended  to  his  own  system ;  for,  as 
said,  empiricism  is  not  a  self-evident  system,  and,  therefore, 
it  must  be  proved.  But  this  proof  can  be  on  the  basis  only 
of  those  principles  and  faculties  which  it  aims  to  discredit. 
It  would  thus  be  a  system  which  could  not  become  strictly 
true  without  becoming  absolutely  doubtful.  Every  system 
which  discredits  first  principles  is  in  this  dilemma.  If  such 
a  system  were  demonstrated  to  be  true,  it  would  at  once  be- 
come demonstrably  doubtful.  Hence,  while  the  study  of 
the  genesis  and  history  of  our  ideas  has  a  psychological 
interest,  and  is  also  of  great  value  in  enabling  us  to  under- 
stand the  origin  of  discovered  prejudices,  it  can  never  claim 
to  decide  the  validity  of  first  principles  without  destroying 
itself.  This  must  always  be  a  philosophical  question,  and 
not  a  psychological  one.  Hence,  the  first  question  in  phi- 
losophy is  not  the  origin  of  ideas,  but  the  clearness  of  their 
content  and  the  consistency  of  their  relations.  Theories  of 
knowledge  in  general  are  answers  to  the  question,  How  is 
knowledge  possible?  They  are  irrelevant  to  the  more  fun- 
damental question,  Is  knowledge  possible?  Their  value 
consists  in  giving  a  theory  of  a  process  already  familiar,  and 
in  unfolding  the  postulates  of  that  process. 

Only  those  familiar  with  the  usurpations  of  empirical 
psychology  will  understand  our  prolixity  on  this  point. 
But  the  mischief  wrought  is  so  great  as  to  warrant  another 
paragraph.  A  belief  may  be  viewed  in  two  ways.*  It  may 
be  regarded  as  an  effect  produced  by  causes,  or  as  a  conclu- 


*  This  distinction  has  been  developed  at  length,  and  with  great  force,  by  Ar- 
thur Balfour,  in  his  "  Defence  of  Philosophic  Doubt." 


16  METAPHYSICS. 

sioii  deduced  from  grounds.  Yery  many  of  our  beliefs  are 
effects,  and  not  conclusions.  They  are  produced  in  us,  and 
not  deduced  by  us.  Probably  all  our  beliefs  are,  to  some 
extent,  products.  This  is  strictly  the  case  with  the  average 
natural  man.  His  beliefs  are  effects,  and  not  deductions. 
But  if  a  belief  is  to  have  any  value  in  a  rational  system, 
it  must  be  more  than  an  effect ;  it  must  also  have  rational 
grounds.  Hence,  after  a  complete  study  of  beliefs  as  effects, 
or  as  simple  facts,  the  grounds  of  belief  remain  for  investi- 
gation. The  question,  then,  of  the  causes  of  belief  is  en- 
tirely distinct  from  the  question  of  grounds.  The  former 
belongs  to  ps3*chology,  the  latter  to  philosophy.  Only  in 
one  case  can  the  two  questions  come  into  contact,  and  that  is 
when  the  theory  of  causes  is  such  as  to  exclude  all  grounds. 
It  may  be  that,  in  strictness,  the  empirical  philosophy  does 
precisely  this ;  but  no  empiricist  can  allow  it  without  cancel- 
ling his  own  system.  For  this  system,  as  well  as  others,  is  a 
set  of  beliefs  with  a  certain  genesis  and  history ;  and  hence, 
if  the  study  of  antecedents  dispenses  with  any  inquiry  into 
the  grounds,  we  could  only  conclude  that  this  system,  as 
well  as  others,  is  groundless,  and  has  no  more  claim,  in  rea- 
son, to  acceptance  than  any  other  superstition.  The  em- 
piricist, of  all  speculators,  is  bound  to  admit  the  distinction 
between  the  causes  and  the  grounds  of  belief  as  of  the  high- 
est philosophical  importance.  The  great  objection  brought 
against  him  by  his  opponents  is,  that  his  theory  of  causes 
leaves  no  room  for  grounds;  that  he  analyzes  all  beliefs  into 
effects,  and  thus  empties  them  of  all  rational  significance. 
These  objections  may  be  well  taken  ;  for  the  present  we  de- 
cide not.  Our  aim  is  to  show  that  the  empiricist's  attempt 
to  test  beliefs  by  their  history  and  antecedents  is  a  contra- 
dictory one  when  applied  to  first  principles,  and  a  mistaken 
one  in  any  case.  As  applied  to  first  principles,  it  results  in 
throwing  doubt  upon  the  principles  of  all  investigation, 
while,  as  such  principles,  they  must  be  above  all  suspicion. 
As  applied  to  other  matters,  it  gives  us  history  instead  of 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

philosophic  criticism.  But,  we  repeat,  a  conception  is  not 
to  be  accepted  or  rejected  because  of  its  history,  but  because 
of  the  strength  or  weakness  of  its  grounds.  The  philoso- 
pher cares  nothing  about  what  men  believe ;  he  seeks, 
rather,  to  know  what  grounds  they  have  for  their  belief. 
Hence  the  only  propositions  which  can  lay  claim  to  philo- 
sophical acceptance  are  such  as  are  self-evident,  or  are  de- 
duced from  others  which  are  self-evident.  If  philosophy  be 
possible  at  all,  it  can  be  on  the  basis  only  of  self-evident 
and  reasoned  propositions.  But  this  self-evidence  and  the 
soundness  of  the  deduction  can  be  tested  only  by  direct  ap- 
peal to  the  reason  within  us.  Men  may  differ  as  to  what  is 
self-evident,  but  all  must  agree  that,  if  philosophy  be  possi- 
ble, there  must  be  self-evident  propositions  at  its  founda- 
tion. For  some  empiricists  the  truth  of  empiricism  will  be 
a  self-evident  proposition.  To  others,  the  infallibility  of 
baby-consciousness,  or  of  the  primal  star-dust,  will  be  a  first 
truth.  If  star-dust  takes  to  thinking,  its  thoughts  will  be 
above  dispute.  The  materialistic  empiricist  will  view  the 
parallelism  between  the  motions  of  matter  and  the  result- 
ing thought  as  unquestionable.  There  is  no  start  possible 
without  some  proposition  which  commands  assent  by  virtue 
of  its  own  self-evidence. 

It  is  a  matter  of  history,  and  not  of  opinion,  that  this 
distinction  between  the  causes  and  the  grounds  of  belief 
has  been  almost  entirely  ignored,  or,  rather,  undreamed  of, 
in  English  philosophy  in  recent  times.  On  the  one  hand, 
fancy  has  run  riot  in  doctrines  of  heredity  and  mental  evo- 
lution, and,  on  the  other,  a  plodding  misunderstanding  has 
ground  away  at  the  associational  mill,  and  all  concerned 
have  imagined  that  philosophy  was  marching  on.  Indeed, 
various  "epoch-making"  works  have  been  produced,  and 
still  more  have  been  predicted.  Meanwhile  not  a  glimmer 
of  philosophic  insight  can  be  discovered  in  the  dreary  prod- 
uct. If  the  philosophic  validity  of  the  belief  in  causation  is 
in  question,  the  debate  switches  off  forthwith  to  the  ques- 
2 


18  METAPHYSICS. 

tion  of  origin.  Of  course,  the  law  itself  is  assumed  through- 
out the  explanation ;  and  when,  by  aid  of  the  law,  the  be- 
lief in  it  is  explained,  the  impression  prevails  that  philos- 
ophy has  progressed.  When  Mill  comes  to  discuss  witli 
Hamilton  the  existence  of  an  external  world,  the  first  and 
only  thing  is  to  give  a  psychological  explanation  of  our  be- 
lief in  an  external  world ;  as  if  this  were  the  question  in 
dispute.  The  manifold  assumptions  of  an  external  world 
which  occur  throughout  the  argument  all  serve  to  give  the 
"psychological  theory"  greater  plausibility,  though  at  the 
same  time  they  deprive  it  of  all  philosophical  significance. 
In  ethics,  psj'chology  has  seized  on  the  entire  science.  The 
origin  of  conscience  and  of  moral  distinctions  appears  to  be 
the  only  possible  question ;  whereas  it  is  not  a  question  of 
ethics  at  all.  Ethics  deals  with  duty,  and  the  question 
•whether  there  be  any  duty  can  be  answered  only  by  an  ap- 
peal to  the  reason  that  is  within  us.  The  study  of  whipped 
curs  may  possibly  throw  some  light  on  the  genesis  of  moral 
ideas,  but  it  can  do  nothing  towards  deciding  their  obliga- 
tion. 

What,  then,  is  our  method  ?  It  is  plain  that  every  philo- 
sophical inquiry  assumes  a  certain  trust  of  reason  in  itself. 
This  is  a  universal  fact  of  mind,  and  hence  a  fact  of  the 
system  of  which  we  form  a  part.  This  self-confidence  of 
reason  is  not  to  be  groundlessly  distrusted,  both  because 
such  distrust  would  be  irrational,  and  because  it  would  fore- 
stall all  investigation.  In  discussing  our  theory  of  things, 
we  propose,  therefore,  to  take  everything  as  it  seems  to  be, 
and  to  make  only  such  changes  as  are  necessary  to  bring 
our  views  into  harmony  with  themselves.  The  reasons  for 
doubt  and  modification  are  to  be  sought  entirely  in  the  nat- 
ure of  the  object,  and  not  in  the  possibility  of  verbal  doubt. 
Such  a  method  does  no  violence  to  the  natural  sense  of  prob- 
ability, which  can  never  be  needlessly  violated  with  impu- 
nity. Such  a  method,  too,  allows  reason  its  full  rights.  It 
is  an  act  of  faith,  and  not  of  scepticism ;  for  it  makes  no 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

changes  unless  reason  calls  for  them.  If  we  distinguish  be- 
tween appearance  and  reality,  it  is  because  reason  can  be 
harmonized  with  itself  in.  no  other  way.  We  take,  there- 
fore, the  theory  of  things  which  is  formed  by  spontaneous 
thought,  and  make  it  the  text  for  a  critical  exegesis,  in  the 
hope  of- making  it  adequate  and  consistent.  "We  take  the 
notions  of  common-sense  as  they  exist,  and  the  functions 
ascribed  to  them,  and  change  them  only  as  reason  itself 
prescribes.  Our  only  assumption  is  a  provisional  trust  in 
reason ;  but  we  by  no  means  assume  that  inquiry  will  leave 
our  general  views  unchanged.  Nor  is  our  problem  any 
more  speculative  than  are  the  theoretical  problems  of  phys- 
ical science,  while  the  method  is  the  same  in  both  cases. 
Physics,  going  out  from  phenomena,  asks  how  we  must 
conceive  of  the  unseen  agent,  or  agents,  which  produce 
them.  Accordingly,  it  posits  atoms,  ethers,  etc.,  of  various 
kinds  and  powers.  Indeed,  theoretical  physics  is  metaphys- 
ics, as  far  as  it  goes.  And  the  physicist  carries  himself  be- 
yond the  phenomena  by  the  sole  force  of  reason.  He  has 
no  other  criterion  of  truth  in  this  unseen  realm  than  the 
rnind  itself.  He  enters  it  only  by  thought,  and  thought  is 
the  only  warrant  for  its  existence.  We  go  to  work  in  the 
same  way,  and  appeal  to  the  same  standard.  We  use,  there- 
fore, no  new  method,  and  appeal  to  no  occult  authority. 

This  thought  deserves  further  emphasis.  Oversight  of  it 
is  at  the  bottom  both  of  the  popular  notion  that  philosophy 
leads  to  scepticism,  and  also  of  the  popular  scepticism  of 
philosophical  conclusions.  Neither  science  nor  philosophy 
denies  anything  which  the  senses  give;  though  both  find 
reason  for  denying  that  the  senses  give  as  much  as  uncrit- 
ical thought  assumes.  Both  make  the  data  of  the  senses 
their  starting-point,  and  on  them  they  build  up  a  rational 
system.  But  this  system  is  never  a  matter  of  the  senses, 
but  an  inference  from  their  data.  Both  physics  and  meta- 
physics carry  us  at  once  into  a  world  of  realities  whose  ex- 
istence can  be  assured  only  by  thought.  The  conclusions 


20  METAPHYSICS. 

of  physics  concerning  the  true  nature  of  things  are  most 
startling,  and  at  first  sight  seem  to  outrage  all  reason.  The 
clod  at  our  feet,  or  the  solid  rock  on  which  we  tread,  is  the 
scene  of  incessant  activity.  We  are  ourselves  immersed  in 
an  ocean  of  throbbing  ether;  and  without  there  is  neither 
light  nor  sound,  but  only  ethereal  or  aerial  vibrations.  If 
we  shut  our  eyes,  and  try  to  realize  it,  we  are  almost  suffo- 
cated. We  open  our  eyes,  and  feel  like  rejecting  the  the- 
ory as  a  mental  nightmare.  We  see  the  light  and  hear  the 
sounds  of  the  world  around  us.  Of  course  we  do ;  no  one 
ever  dreamed  of  denying  it.  These  theories,  which  seem 
so  monstrous  when  tested  by  the  senses,  are  not  to  be  tested 
by  the  senses,  but  solely  by  the  reason.  They  deny  noth- 
ing which  the  senses  give,  but  are  inferred  from  the  data  of 
the  senses.  Our  trust  in  them,  therefore,  depends  only  upon 
our  trust  in  reason  itself,  and  on  the  cogency  with  which 
they  are  inferred  from  the  data.  In  like  manner  the  as- 
tronomer proposes  a  theory  of  the  earth  and  heavens  which 
seems  to  do  violence  to  the  plainest  teachings  of  the  senses, 
but,  upon  reflection,  it  becomes  clear  that  the  astronomical 
heavens  and  the  visible  heavens  are  not  properly  contradic- 
tory. The  astronomer  makes  the  visible  heavens  his  start- 
ing-point ;  and  he  finds  that  the  visible  heavens  force  us  to 
affirm  the  astronomical  heavens.  The  visible  heavens  are 
the  heavens  as  they  appear  to  the  eye;  the  astronomical 
heavens  are  the  heavens  as  they  appear  to  the  reason.  Each 
view,  in  its  place,  is  correct,  and  neither  denies  the  other. 
But  if  the  boor  should  attempt  to  demolish  the  Copernican 
theory  by  appealing  to  the  senses,  no  one  would  pay  any 
attention  to  him,  for  every  one  now  recognizes  that  the 
senses  have  no  jurisdiction  in  this  matter.  Reason  only  is 
competent  to  a  judgment ;  and  if  the  theory  were  over- 
thrown, it  would  only  be  as  reason  showed  that  the  phe- 
nomena are  susceptible  of  another  and  more  rational  expla- 
nation. 

Now,  in  judging  of  philosophical  doctrines,  it  is  of  first 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

importance  to  bear  in  mind  this  distinction  between  phe- 
nomena and  inferences  from  phenomena,  which  we  have 
illustrated  at  such  length.  The  senses  have  the  same  func- 
tion in  philosophy  which  they  have  in  science — namely,  to 
furnish  the  raw  material  for  the  mind's  activity.  Philo- 
sophical theories,  like  scientific  theories,  are  not  to  be  judged 
by  the  senses,  but  by  reason  only.  As  it  is  no  objection  to 
physics  and  astronomy  that  the  atoms  and  the  ether  cannot 
be  seen,  or  that  the  heavens  seem  to  contradict  Copernicus, 
so  it  is  no  objection  to  philosophy  that  its  theories  cannot 
be  verified  by  the  senses.  They  are  never  matters  of  eye- 
sight, but  of  insight.  Philosophy  is  always  ready  to  con- 
sider objections  against  the  justness  of  its  inferences  from 
phenomena,  but  objections  based  only  on  the  senses  them- 
selves it  treats  with  the  same  disdain  with  which  an  astron- 
omer would  listen  to  an  attack  on  the  Copernican  theory 
based  on  its  opposition  to  appearances.  In  one  sense,  phi- 
losophy is  a  war  against  the  senses ;  and  in  this  sense  no 
one  can  be  a  philosopher  until  he  gets  out  of  his  senses. 
Philosophy  first  attempts  to  reduce  the  senses  to  their  true 
place  by  rooting  out  the  uncritical  prejudices  which  make 
up  the  bulk  of  our  spontaneous  thinking;  and  when  the 
senses  are  properly  limited  to  appearances,  philosophy  seeks 
to  press  beyond  the  sense-system  to  a  rational  system,  which 
shall  express  the  true  nature  and  relations  of  things.  Viewed 
in  this  light,  the  crude  hypotheses  of  the  early  Greek  phi- 
losophers were  epoch-making  in  the  history  of  thought ;  for, 
puerile  as  the  theories  themselves  were,  they  first  gave  voice 
to  the  demand  for  unity  and  rational  explanation  in  nature. 
They  were  declarations  that  the  senses  are  limited  to  ap- 
pearance, and  that  reason  only  can  penetrate  to  the  reality 
of  things.  If,  then,  in  the  following  discussions,  many 
things  are  found  which  are  violent  and  even  monstrous 
paradoxes,  when  measured  by  the  standard  of  the  senses, 
the  reader  is  begged  to  remember  that  we  do  not  recognize 
that  standard  as  a  measure  of  rational  truth,  any  more  than 


22  METAPHYSICS. 

the  physicist  recognizes  it  as  a  test  of  his  theories.  If  the 
conclusions  are  soundly  inferred  from  admitted  premises, 
they  must  be  allowed,  no  matter  what  bends  or  breaks. 

There  is,  then,  a  distinction  between  phenomena,  or  real- 
ity as  it  appears  to  the  senses,  and  noumena  or  reality  as  it 
appears  to  thought ;  but  these  two  are  not  properly  contra- 
dictory. Phenomena  are  the  basis  of  our  knowledge  of 
noumena ;  and  noumena  are  inferred  from  phenomena.  It 
has  been  claimed  that  noumena  are  essentially  unknowable. 
This  claim  taken  literally  would  mean  that  we  do  not  know 
what  we  think.  It  may  further  mean  that  we  cannot  com- 
prehend the  possibility  of  existence;  and  in  this  sense  the 
claim  is  true.  But  we  may  know  many  things  as  facts 
which  we  cannot  construct  or  deduce.  Ultimate  facts  can 
never  be  comprehended,  they  can  only  be  recognized  and  ad- 
mitted. In  this  sense  the  claim  is  a  truism  and  irrelevant  to 
our  purpose.  Finally,  the  claim  may  mean  that  phenomena 
allow  so  many  interpretations  that  no  consistent  and  neces- 
sary thought-system  can  be  deduced  from  them.  But  this 
claim  can  be  tested  only  by  trial.  It  is  also  said  that  nou- 
mena, as  well  as  phenomena,  are  subjective.  Both  alike 
represent,  not  the  reality,  but  only  its  appearance.  The 
latter  give  reality  as  it  appears  to  the  senses;  and  the  for- 
mer give  it  as  it  appears  to  thought.  In  this  extreme  sense 
of  the  word,  it  is  true  that  we  know  only  appearances ;  but 
the  admission  is  without  significance.  It  is  only  another 
form  of  the  universal  subjectivity  of  knowledge,  or  of  the 
fact  that  the  mind  can  never  transcend  its  conceptions  and 
deal  with  its  objects  except  as  thought.  Finally,  phenom- 
ena have  sometimes  another  meaning  than  the  one  here  giv- 
en. The  activities  of  things  are  spoken  of  as  their  phe- 
nomena; and  even  mind  is  said  to  have  its  phenomena. 
Taken  in  this  sense,  the  claim  that  we  know  only  phe- 
nomena means  only  that  an  tin  manifested  thing  could 
not  be  known.  But  the  ordinary  distinction  between 
phenomena  and  noumena  is  that  given  in  the  etymol- 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

ogy  of  the  words  themselves ;  and  it  is  in  this  sense  that 
we  use  it. 

In  accordance  with  our  definition  of  metaphysics,  our 
work  will  be  critical,  and  not  creative.  We  begin  with  the 
given,  and  ask  what  changes  the  reflective  reason  calls  for 
in  order  to  reach  a  consistent  interpretation.  The  philoso- 
pher has  no  recipe  for  creation,  and  cheerfully  admits  that, 
if  reality  did  not  exist,  he  would  be  sadly  at  a  loss  to  pro- 
duce it.  Being  is  a  perpetual  miracle  and  mystery,  which 
logic  can  never  deduce.  It  is  something  to  be  recognized 
and  admitted,  rather  than  deduced  or  comprehended.  We 
aim  not,  then,  to  tell  how  being  is  made,  or  how  it  is  possi- 
ble, but  how  we  shall  think  of  it  after  it  is  made.  Not  to 
create,  but  to  understand  reality,  is  the  highest  possibility 
of  human  thought.  Neither  the  attempt  nor  the  problems 
are  new.  It  will  not  escape  notice  that  our  conception  of 
metaphysics  is  identical  with  that  of  Herbart,  who  defined 
it  as  "  the  working-over  of  the  notions."  And  since  the 
time  of  the  Eleatics,  500  B.C.,  the  need  of  this  working 
over  has  been  felt.  And  as  our  most  fundamental  thought 
of  reality  is  that  something  exists,  we  begin  with  an  exposi- 
tion and  criticism  of  the  notion  of  being. 


Part  I. 
ONTOLOGY 


PART  L— ONTOLOGY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  NOTION  OF  BEING. 

BEING,  reality,  existence,  are  words  of  many  meanings. 
In  their  common  use,  they  are  not  limited  to  the  substan- 
tial, but  are  affirmed  of  thoughts,  feelings,  laws,  relations,  as 
well  as  of  things.  The  thought  we  think  is  real  in  distinc- 
tion from  others  which  we  do  not  think,  or  from  others — 
such  as  contradictions — which  cannot  be  thought.  Hence 
a  real  thought  may  variously  denote  either  a  mental  act, 
without  regard  to  its  object,  or  a  right  conception  of  a  real 
object,  or  simply  a  logical  possibility,  that  is,  any  conjunc- 
tion of  ideas  which  the  laws  of  thought  do  not  forbid.  So, 
also,  we  speak  of  existing  laws  and  relations  as  real  in  dis- 
tinction from  others  which,  as  imaginary,  are  unreal.  In  its 
widest  sense,  being  is  affirmed  of  every  object  of  thought ; 
in  its  metaphysical  sense,  it  applies  only  to  substantive 
things.  Thus  it  appears  that  there  are  various  kinds  of 
reality.  Laws,  relations,  events,  are  real,  but  never  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  things  are  real.  It  is  important  to 
keep  this  distinction  in  mind,  and  to  remember  the  kind  of 
reality  which  is  possible  to  any  given  object  of  thought. 
Neglect  of  it  has  been  the  fruitful  source  of  logomachy  and 
frivolous  discussion  in  the  history  of  philosophy.  And,  ob- 
vious as  the  distinction  seems  to  us,  yet  the  human  mind  has 


28  METAPHYSICS. 

reached  it  only  through  great  mental  tribulation.  In  the 
early  Greek  philosophy,  especially,  a  great  part  of  its  confu- 
sion and  apparent  sophistry  can  be  traced  directly  to  over- 
looking the  various  meanings  of  being  or  reality.  All  real- 
ities, then,  are  not  real  in  the  same  sense.  The  reality  of  a 
feeling  is  in  being  felt ;  that  of  a  thought  is  in  being  thought; 
that  of  a  law  is  in  its  ruling ;  that  of  a  truth  is  in  its  validity. 
The  question  which  metaphysics  proposes  is,  In  what  does 
the  reality  or  being  of  things  consist  ?  s 

This  question  admits  of  easy  misunderstanding.  It  may 
seem  that  our  aim  is  to  construct  being;  but  this  miscon- 
ception has  been  warded  off  in  advance.  The  aim  is,  sim- 
ply, to  find  what  we  mean  by  being,  or  to  find  what  condi- 
tions a  thing  must  satisfy  in  order  to  fill  out  our  notion  of 
being.  How  it  satisfies  them  is  the  fathomless  mystery  of 
existence ;  but  it  is  competent  to  thought  to  ask  what  they 
are.  And,  first,  we  point  out  that  the  content  of  this  no- 
tion cannot  be  determined  by  any  process  of  logical  abstrac- 
tion. The  notion  of  pure  being  which  results  from  this 
process  is,  like  all  general  notions,  incapable  of  real  exist- 
ence. Concepts  are  formed  by  abstracting  the  common  fac- 
tor or  factors  in  a  multitude  of  individuals,  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  unlike  elements.  Thus  they  become  mere  symbols 
or  frames  of  thought,  or  short-hand  expressions,  like  the 
algebraic  signs.  As  such  they  have  an  important  function 
in  our  mental  life,  and  thought  could  not  go  on  without 
them.  At  the  same  time,  they  are  incapable  of  objective 
existence ;  and  often,  indeed,  they  contain  incompatible  de- 
terminations when  viewed  as  realities.  Thus,  the  concept 
of  a  triangle  is  that  of  a  plane  figure  bounded  by  three 
straight  lines.  The  common  factor  in  all  triangles — that  of 
being  bounded  by  three  straight  lines — is  all  that  appears  in 
the  concept.  It  abstracts  from  the  lengths  of  the  sides  and 
from  any  particular  relations  or  magnitudes  of  the  angles. 
The  concept,  then,  represents  neither  a  large  nor  a  small 
triangle  as  such ;  it  is  neither  acute,  right-angled,  nor  ob- 


THE  NOTION   OF  BEING.  09 

lique,  but  stands  for  all  alike.  This,  however,  is  not  pos- 
sible in  reality,  but  only  in  thought.  Every  real  triangle 
must  have  sides  and  angles  of  definite  magnitude  and  ratios, 
and  it  must  belong  to  some  one  of  the  classes  mentioned. 
The  same  is  true  for  all  logical  concepts.  They  are  contra- 
dictory when  viewed  as  real  existences.  The  universal  man, 
who  is  neither  white  nor  black,  neither  tall  nor  short,  nei- 
ther young  nor  old,  does  not,  and  cannot,  exist.  The  uni- 
versal horse  does  not  run.  The  universal  color  cannot  be 
seen.  Motion  in  general  is  impossible.  The  reality  is  al- 
ways a  number  of  individuals,  each  of  which,  in  addition  to 
the  class  characteristics,  has  specific  determinations  whereby 
alone  it  has  reality.  Hence,  in  passing  from  the  concept 
back  to  reality,  we  have  always  to  supply  the  factors  left 
out  in  forming  the  notion  ;  and  until  this  is  done,  we  have  a 
form  of  thought  only,  and  not  a  fact  of  objective  existence. 
It  is  with  concepts  as  with  algebraic  formulas.  These  ab- 
stract from  any  definite  quantity,  and  deal  only  with  the 
relations  of  different  quantities.  In  this  way  one  may  ob- 
tain results  valid  for  every  case  of  certain  class ;  but  always, 
in  order  to  apply  the  formula  to  any  actual  case,  one  must 
replace  the  general  quantities  by  specific  values.  "When 
this  is  done,  the  formula  ceases  to  be  general,  and  becomes 
a  real  case,  which,  as  such,  must  be  specific  and  particular. 

The  nature  and  function  of  logical  notions  are  now  gen- 
erally understood,  and  there  is  no  longer  any  danger  of  fall- 
ing back  into  the  old  realism.  The  individual  is  no  longer 
an  accident  of  the  universal,  but  the  realization  of  the  uni- 
versal. But  an  exception  to  this  insight  must  be  made  in 
a  single  case.  In  the  notion  of  "pure  being,"  we  have 
a  relic  of  realism,  or  a  mistake  of  a  logical  concept  for  a 
real  existence,  which  still  haunts  philosophy.  This  pure 
being  is  viewed  as  without  distinction  or  quality  of  any 
kind,  but  is  alike  in  all  things.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  spec- 
ulators have  come  to  this  notion.  Logically  considered,  ev- 
ery object  is  a  determination  of  the  notion  of  being.  Being 


30  METAPHYSICS. 

appears  alike  in  all,  and  the  difference  and  determination 
are  found  in  the  attributes.  Logically,  then,  every  object 
is  an  accident  of  being;  it  is  a  determination  of  the  general 
notion  to  a  particular  case  by  means  of  some  specific  mark. 
From  this  point  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that  there  is  some  ele- 
ment of  real  being  which  is  common  to  all  objects,  and 
•which,  by  receiving  particular  determinations,  becomes  the 
particular  and  specific  thing.  As  this  being  exists  in  itself, 
it  is  pure  and  universal;  and,  as  such,  it  is  the  necessary  pre- 
supposition of  all  definite  and  particular  being.  The  fal- 
lacy would  be  palpable  in  the  case  of  any  other  notion  than 
this  of  being.  No  one  would  say  that  pure  motion  first  ex- 
ists as  the  element  common  to  all  specific  motions,  and  then, 
by  receiving  specific  velocity  and  direction,  becomes  specific 
motion  ;  and  yet  pure  motion  is  just  as  possible  as  pure  be- 
ing. If  one  should  claim  that  pure  motion  is  the  necessary 
presupposition  of  all  specific  motion,  the  mistake  would  be 
detected  at  once;  but,  owing  to  certain  illusions  of  the 
senses,  we  do  not  so  readily  detect  the  error  in  the  case  of 
pure  being. 

We  must  make  this  point  clear  to  ourselves,  even  at  the 
expense  of  tedious  repetition.  In  dealing  with  universals, 
the  order  of  thought  reverses  the  order  of  fact.  The  thought 
of  the  particular  is  possible  only  through  the  universal ;  but 
the  universal  is  real  only  in  the  particular.  The  first  fact 
has  been  expressed  in  the  doctrine  that  all  cognition  is  clas- 
sification, or  that  nothing  can  be  known  until  it  is  recog- 
nized as  one  of  a  kind.  This  fact  is  well  adapted  to  lead  us 
to  overlook  the  fact  that  the  universal  is  realized  only  in  the 
particular.  But  whatever  exists  in  reality  must  always  be 
something  specific,  and  not  logically  universal.  Just  as  a 
real  triangle  must  always  have  definite  angles  and  sides,  so 
every  real  thing  must  have  definite  properties.  The  indefi- 
nite triangle  is  no  triangle.  A  triangle  may  be  indefinite  in 
knowledge,  and  then  it  is  a  problem  for  solution ;  but  while 
our  knowledge  is  indefinite,  we  still  posit  the  triangle  itself 


THE  NOTION   OF   BEING.  31 

as  completely  determined.  So,  also,  a  thing  may  be  indefi- 
nite in  knowledge.  All  we  know  may  be,  merely,  that 
something  exists.  In  such  a  case  the  thing  presents  a  prob- 
lem, and  we  seek  to  solve  it  by  discovering  the  unknown 
qualities  of  the  thing.  But,  upon  reflection,  it  becomes 
clear  that  the  thing  itself  is  definite  all  the  time.  Hegel 
was  quite  right  in  saying  that  pure  being  equals  nothing; 
for  its  definition,  as  without  definite  power,  quality,  or  rela- 
tion, is  the  exact  definition  of  non-existence.  The  notion  of 
pure  being,  then,  may  be  allowed  as  a  logical  concept ;  but, 
like  all  other  concepts,  it  must  be  restricted  to  an  ideal  ex- 
istence. Only  the  definite  and  specific  can  exist  in  reality. 
This  notion  of  pure  being  as  an  objective  fact  has  received 
further  support  from  the  general  tendency  to  mistake  the 
movement  of  our  thought  for  a  movement  of  objective  be- 
ing. We  have  already  pointed  out  that  every  object  is,  log- 
ically, a  determination  of  the  notion  of  being ;  and  it  is  very 
easy  to  mistake  this  determination  in  our  thought  for  a  proc- 
ess in  the  thing.  But  a  very  little  reflection  serves  to  show 
that  many  movements  of  our  thought  are  without  any  double 
in  the  world  of  objective  being.  They  are  but  the  subjec- 
tive devices  by  which  the  mind  seeks  to  master  the  indepen- 
dent fact.  Of  course,  if  thought  is  to  grasp  reality,  it  must 
have  an  essential  relation  to  reality ;  but  this  relation  cannot 
be  an  identity  of  process.  By  means  of  the  syllogism,  the 
human  mind  can  trace  the  course  of  things ;  but  that  course 
itself  is  not  syllogistic.  Thus,  in  analytics,  one  can  get  the 
equation  of  a  curve  in  terms  of  Cartesian,  or  polar,  or  qua- 
ternion co-ordinates.  The  several  equations  would  be  to- 
tally unlike,  and  yet  one  could  develop  from  each  the  true 
properties  of  the  curve.  The  co-ordinate  system  is  but  the 
scaffolding  by  which  we  climb  to  the  desired  knowledge, 
and  in  itself  it  is  not  represented  by  anything  in  the  curve. 
Now  the  movements  of  thought  by  which  we  seek  to  grasp 
this  objective  fact  have  mainly  this  character  of  subjective 
scaffolding,  and  they  must  not  be  viewed  as  movements  of 


32  METAPHYSICS. 

the  thing  without  special  proof  in  each  case.  Oversight  of 
this  fact  has  led  to  a  confusion  of  the  development  of  knowl- 
edge with  a  development  of  being  itself,  and  thus  the  no- 
tion of  pure  being  has  received  further  support.  In  know- 
ing, we  begin  by  positing  a  thing  as  thing,  and  then  we  seek 
to  determine  its  attributes.  The  two  operations  may  be 
simultaneous,  but  often  we  know  only  that  something  is. 
When  posited  simply  as  existing,  its  being  is  for  thought 
almost  "pure;"  and  when,  at  a  later  period,  its  qualities 
are  determined,  it  becomes  for  thought  definite  and  deter- 
mined. But  this  process  describes  nothing  in  the  history  of 
the  thing  itself.  It  is  not  the  thing,  but  our  knowledge  of 
it,  which  develops  from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite.  Her- 
bart's  doctrine  of  being  as  "absolute  position  "'seems  to  rest 
mainly  on  the  same  confusion  of  our  thought  of  the  thing 
with  the  thing  itself.  It  is  true  that,  in  knowing,  we  first 
posit  a  subject,  and  then  pass  to  fix  its  attributes ;  but  the 
subject  is  not  posited  as  indefinite,  but  only  as  indefinitely 
known.  It  is  thus  a  problem  to  be  solved  ;  but  all  the  un- 
known quantities  have  definite  values.  What  Herbart  says 
of  being  as  "  absolute  position"  is  true  only  of  being  as  con- 
cept. The  concept  is  pure  affirmation  or  position,  without 
restriction  or  qualification  of  any  sort;  but  whenever  any 
real  thing  is  posited,  it  must  be  a  position  of  something  spe- 
cific. Otherwise  the  position  is  empty,  and  nothing  is  pos- 
ited. The  purity  cancels  the  reality  of  the  act.  The  pre- 
tended development  of  being  in  the  Hegelian  philosophy  is, 
also,  only  a  development  of  our  thought  about  being,  and 
the  latter  is  mistaken  for  the  former.  It  will  help  us  in 
guarding  against  this  delusion  of  pure  being  to  remember, 

(1)  that  the  predication  by  which  we  make  objects  definite 
for  our  thought  corresponds  to  no  process  in  being;  and, 

(2)  that  predication  itself  assumes  that  the  object  is  already 
definite.    It  aims  to  tell  what  the  object  is,  and  not  to 
make  it. 

The  notion  of  pure  being  must  be  rejected  as  incapable 


THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  33 

of  real  existence.  It  must  further  be  rejected  as  useless,  if 
it  could  exist.  The  notion  of  being,  when  found,  must  be 
adequate  to  the  demands  made  upon  it.  But  being  is  the 
fundamental  fact  or  notion,  and,  as  such,  it  must  contain 
the  ground  and  explanation  of  all  manifestation.  That 
which  appears  must  be  explained  by  that  which  truly  is. 
Hence  we  must  have  constant  regard  to  the  conditions  of 
the  problem,  or  a  true  solution  will  not  be  reached.  It  is 
not  enough  that  the  notion  of  being  should  be  logically 
consistent ;  it  must  also  include  in  itself  the  ground  of  all 
manifestation.  There  is  no  logical  contradiction  in  suppos- 
ing a  world  of  unrelated  and  incommensurable  things ;  but 
such  things  would  be  indifferent,  and  hence  would  contain 
no  explanation  of  the  world  of  interaction.  They  would 
form  no  system ;  for  each  would  be  indifferent  to  all  the 
rest.  There  is,  also,  no  contradiction  in  conceiving  being 
as  changeless  and  inert ;  but  there  is  a  contradiction  in  sup- 
posing that  such  being  would  explain  anything.  The  real 
world  is  one  of  motions,  changes,  and  interactions ;  and  the 
being  or  beings  we  plant  at  the  bottom  must  be  capable  of 
fitting  into  and  explaining  these  changes  and  interactions. 
Any  other  conception  of  being  would  be  gratuitous  and  use- 
less. Here  is  where  the  Eleatics  failed.  They  overlooked 
the  conditions  of  the  problem,  and  defined  being  as  some- 
thing unitary,  motionless,  and  unchanging.  But  the  actual 
world  manifests  plurality,  and  a  constant  entrance  and  exit; 
and  the  Eleatics,  to  save  their  definition,  were  forced  to  de- 
clare the  whole  phenomenal  world  to  be  an  utter  delusion. 
Thus,  alongside  of  the  world  of  being  was  posited  a  world 
of  non-being,  which,  after  all,  had  a  sort  of  being.  And 
even  this  heroic  step  was  not  enough,  for  the  delusion  must 
be  accounted  for.  Since  being  is  one  and  changeless,  how 
could  the  delusion  of  plurality  and  change  ever  arise  ?  The 
existence  of  the  delusion,  even  as  delusion,  is  incompatible 
with  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  philosophy.  Again, 
since  being  does  not  explain  the  delusion,  the  delusion  is  no 
3 


34  METAPHYSICS. 

longer  any  ground  for  affirming  being.  The  phenomenal 
world,  then,  must  be  retained,  and  the  changeless  being 
must  be  renounced;  Heraclitus,  on  the  other  hand,  was  so 
impressed  with  the  fact  of  change  that  he  denied  the  exist- 
ence of  any  constant  factor  in  being,  and  declared  that  all 
things  flow.  But  this  doctrine  is  intelligible  only  because 
it  is  false ;  for  flow  could  never  be  known  as  such  apart 
from  a  constant  factor  which  abides  across  it.  The  Greek 
atornists,  also,  failed  to  observe  the  conditions  of  the  prob- 
lem, and  were  equally  unsuccessful  iu  finding  an  adequate 
definition.  They  regarded  the  atoms  as  the  only  realities ; 
but  they  viewed  tnem  as  self-existent  and  mutually  inde- 
pendent. This  definition  is  borrowed  entirely  from  the 
illusions  of  sense-experience,  and  becomes  a  contradiction 
when  the  atoms  are  viewed  as  forming  a  trne  system.  As 
independent,  they  must  be  unrelated  and  indifferent ;  and 
hence  they  contain  no  account  of  the  interactions  and  inter- 
dependencies  of  the  actual  world.  The  independent  indi- 
viduality excludes  the  community  necessary  to  a  system. 
In  modern  times  this  error  has  been  repeated  by  ITerbart, 
who  has  united  atomism  with  the  Eleatic  philosophy.  He 
posits  a  number  of  simple,  changeless,  and  essentially  unre- 
lated beings ;  and  it  is  only  by  logical  inconsequence  and 
violence  that  he  even  seems  to  explain  the  real  world.  The 
same  oversight  often  appears  in  the  modern  atomic  theory. 
The  element  of  relation  and  interdependence  is  overlooked, 
and  the  atoms  are  viewed  as  self-existent  and  independent. 
Thus  the  error  of  the  Greek  atomists  is  repeated,  and  the 
atoms  are  made  useless  for  scientific  purposes.  For  not  at- 
oms in  general,  but  only  interacting,  interdependent  atoms, 
are  of  use  in  scientific  explanations. 

This  necessity  that  being  shall  be  so  conceived  as  to  explain 
all  manifestation  sets  in  a  still  clearer  light  the  emptiness 
of  the  notion  of  pure  being.  Being,  as  indefinite  and  unde- 
termined, contains  no  ground  for  the  definite  and  determined 
manifestation.  As  totally  indefinite,  there  is  no  reason  why 


THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  35 

it  should  act  rather  than  not  act ;  and  if  it  should  act,  there 
is  no  reason  why  it  should  act  in  one  way  rather  than  in  an- 
other. There  is  neither  motion  nor  progress  nor  direction 
in  it.  If  the  notion  of  pure  being  represented  a  possible 
existence,  the  only  formula  into  which  it  could  enter  would 
be,  One  times  one  is  one ;  and  out  of  this  no  advance  could 
be  secured.  In  strictness,  pure  being,  as  indefinite,  could 
not  enter  even  into  this  formula;  for  A  =  A  supposes  that 
A  is  definitely  A,  and  not  X.  Hence  being  cannot  be 
viewed  as  first  existing  as  pure  being,  and  then  as  giving 
itself  determinations;  for  if  it  did  exist  pure,  it  could  never 
attain  to  definite  determination.  It  is  a  necessity  of  thought, 
that  the  definite  can  proceed  only  from  the  definite,  and  that 
the  indefinite  can  found  nothing.  To  deduce  motion  from 
rest,  being  from  non-being,  or  anything  whatever  from  its 
opposite,  is  no  more  impossible  than  to  deduce  the  definite 
from  the  indefinite. 

This  truth  is  self-evident.  No  argument  is  needed  to 
establish  it,  but  only  an  understanding  of  the  terms.  And 
yet,  owing  largely  to  the  delusions  of  the  senses,  this  notion 
of  pure  being  has  had  a  great  and  pernicious  influence  in 
philosophy.  We  find  it  underlying  the  distinction  of  mat- 
ter and  form  in  the  early  Greek  speculations.  Matter  in 
itself  is  formless  and  powerless,  and  only  one  step  from 
non-existence.  Form,  on  the  other  hand,  is  empty  and 
bodiless.  But  matter,  though  powerless,  has  a  mystic  pow- 
er of  filling  out  form  and  stiffening  it  into  reality ;  and 
thus,  by  the  union  of  the  two,  definite  material  existence  is 
produced.  Plato,  also,  conceived  of  things  as  produced  by 
the  union  of  the  idea  with  indefinite  existence.  Through 
the  idea,  the  bare  being  became  something;  and  through 
this  being  the  idea  became  more  than  an  idea — a  thing,  as 
well  as  a  thought.  In  both  of  these  views  we  have  a  certain 
division  of  labor.  The  idea,  or  the  form,  provides  for  qual- 
ity and  determination,  and  the  being  provides  the  reality. 
The  idea  is  the  mold ;  being  is  the  filling.  The  idea  is  the 


36  METAPHYSICS. 

plan ;  being  is  the  raw  material  which  is  wrought  into  the 
plan,  and  thus  lifts  it  into  reality.  The  crude  and  false 
analogy  of  our  daily  experience  is  manifest,  and  the  impos- 
sibility of  this  division  of  labor  is  equally  so.  The  idea,  the 
great  source  of  definite  determination,  is  left  unexplained ; 
and,  if  it  were  accounted  for,  the  formless  being  could  not 
perform  the  function  assigned  to  it.  The  appeal  to  experi- 
ence is  short-sighted.  Our  own  plans,  which  we  impress 
upon  matter,  are,  indeed,  external  to  it ;  but  matter  is  able 
to  fall  into  the  molds  of  our  thought  only  because  of  cer- 
tain definite  properties  and  laws  of  its  own.  If  it  had  no 
forces  of  attraction  and  resistance,  •whereby  it  retains  its 
form  and  resists  change,  it  could  not  be  built  into  our  plans. 
The  matter  we  employ  is  not  indefinite  in  itself,  but  only  in 
reference  to  our  purposes  or  to  our  perceptions.  Yet  this 
indefiniteness  relative  to  us  we  mistake  for  an  essential 
indefiniteness  of  the  thing,  until  we  see  that  the  use  we 
make  of  any,  even  the  most  unformed,  material,  depends 
always  on  certain  definite  properties  of  the  stuff  employed. 
This  fancy  of  a  formless,  but  plastic  stuff,  which  barely  ex- 
ists, haunts,  indeed,  our  sense-bound  imagination,  but  reflec- 
tion serves  to  exorcise  it. 

Nor  is  the  idea  confined  entirely  to  ancient  speculation ; 
it  constantly  reappears  even  in  modern  thought.  The  infi- 
nite substance  of  Spinoza  is  an  example.  At  times,  indeed, 
he  speaks  of  this  substance  as  having  infinite  positive  attri- 
butes, but  at  other  times  he  presents  it  as  the  purely  indefi- 
nite and  undetermined.  His  guiding  principle,  that  all  de- 
termination is  negation,  forbids  any  other  conception  of  the 
infinite.  It  can  be  everything  only  on  condition  of  being 
nothing.  The  absolute  being  of  Schelling,  and  the  absolute 
idea  of  at  least  some  of  the  Hegelians,  are  but  new  forms  of 
the  old  thing.  The  philosophy  of  the  unconditioned  is  of 
the  same  kind.  The  unconditioned  is  supposed  to  transcend 
all  likeness  and  all  difference.  It  is  simple  absolute  reality, 
without  limitation,  and  hence  without  determination  of  any 


THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  37 

kind.  But  this  is  the  old  abstraction  in  a  new  form.  That 
it  is  unknowable  need  not  occasion  us  the  least  distress ;  for 
it  is  as  unreal  as  it  is  unknowable.  The  current  distinction 
of  matter  and  force  is  another  example.  Matter,  in  itself, 
is  viewed  as  inert  and  undifferentiated ;  and  it  becomes 
active  and  different  only  through  force.  Most  of  the  cur- 
rent theories  of  evolution  are  built  upon  the  same  notion 
of  pure  being.  They  all  alike  assume  that  indefiniteness 
was  first,  and  founded  deh'niteness ;  indeed,  the  most  ambi- 
tious exposition  of  the  doctrine  assumes  that  the  only  func- 
tion of  philosophy  is  to  trace  the  genesis  of  the  universe  as 
a  passage  from  the  homogeneous  and  indefinite  to  the  het- 
erogeneous and  definite.  Pure  or  indefinite  being  precedes 
and  founds  all  definite  existence,  and  philosophy  has  only 
to  trace  the  process.  The  physical  philosophy  of  the  Spen- 
cerians  is  identical  in  aim,  and  almost  identical  in  method, 
with  the  idealism  of  the  Hegelians.  The  same  conception 
of  pure  being  appears  often  in  theology,  in  distinctions  be- 
tween the  divine  being  and  the  divine  existence,  and  in  at- 
tempts to  found  the  living  God  on  something  deeper  than 
his  own  living  reality.  The  divine  being  is  spoken  of  as 
the  abyssmal,  undifferentiated  absolute,  which  is  at  once  all 
and  nothing;  while  the  divine  existence  is  the  standing 
forth  in  definiteuess  of  the  essentially  indefinite  being  of 
God.  But  in  all  these  cases  we  meet  the  same  logical  diffi- 
culty. The  definite  cannot  be  deduced  from  the  indefinite. 
A  definite  conclusion  can  never  be  deduced  from  indefinite 
premises.  The  indefinite  founds  and  leads  to  nothing,  and 
is  itself  nothing.  V 

Nothing  but  the  persistence  of  this  notion  could  excuse 
any  further  reference  to  it.  But  not  only  is  it  the  founda- 
tion of  the  most  ambitious  of  current  philosophic  theories, 
but  a  great  cloud  of  illustrations  are  given  in  support  of  it. 
All  progress  is  declared  to  be  from  the  like  to  the  unlike, 
or  from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite,  through  continuous 
differentiations  and  integrations.  It  is  necessary,  therefore, 


38  METAPHYSICS. 

to  show  that  none  of  these  illustrations  illustrate.  When 
the  apparently  unorganized  contents  of  an  egg  develop  into 
a  chicken,  the  progress  from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite  is 
only  in  appearance.  The  egg  is  a  perfectly  definite  com- 
pound of  perfectly  definite  chemical  elements,  with  per- 
fectly definite  forces  and  laws,  and  in  perfectly  definite 
relations  of  interaction  with  a  perfectly  definite  universe. 
And  when  this  perfectly  definite  complex  of  definite  ele- 
ments passes  into  other  forms,  it  becomes  no  more  definite 
for  reason,  but  only  for  the  senses.  The  entire  progress  is 
from  defiuiteness  which  only  reason  can  perceive  to  definite- 
ness  which  the  senses  can  perceive.  A  similar  criticism  ap- 
plies to  the  claim  that,  on  the  nebular  theory,  we  have  in 
the  solar  system  an  advance  from  the  indefinite  to  the  defi- 
nite. Here,  again,  the  growing  definiteness  is  purely  phe- 
nomenal, or  for  the  senses,  and  has  no  application  to  the 
elements  which  conduct  the  process.  IS"o  physicist  doubts 
that,  in  the  nebulous  period,  the  laws  and  forces  of  the  ele- 
ments were  as  mathematically  definite  as  they  are  at  pres- 
ent. In  the  most  vaguely  outlined  cloud  he  finds  the  same 
fixity  of  law  and  rational  relation  which  exists  in  the  most 
sharply  cut  crystal.  The  difference  is  for  the  senses,  and 
not  for  reason.  The  evolution  formula,  that  all  progress  is 
from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite,  applies  only  to  appear- 
ances, and  not  to  the  realities  which  underlie  them.  The 
irrelevancy  of  the  illustrations  drawn  from  the  possibility 
of  using  the  same  stuff  to  make  various  things  has  already 
been  referred  to.  The  mistake  consists  in  mistaking  the 
indefiniteness  of  matter  with  reference  to  our  plans  for  an 
indefiniteness  in  itself;  whereas,  it  is  only  by  virtue  of  its 
own  definite  properties  that  it  becomes  usable  by  us.  It 
must  also  be  noted  that  none  of  the  attempted  evolutions  of 
pure  being  have  ever  succeeded  in  keeping  it  pure.  Schel- 
ling  attempts  to  explain  the  world  of  matter  and  mind  by 
the  absolute,  which  is  the  pure  identity  of  subject  and  ob- 
ject. But  from  pure  identity  there  is  no  way  to  difference ; 


THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  39 

and  thus,  at  last,  lie  is  forced  to  posit  in  this  identity  a 
"  dark  nature-ground,"  which,  in  some  unexplained  way,  fell 
out  of  the  absolute  into  being.  Spencer's  indefinite  and 
homogeneous,  also,  ought  to  lie  beyond  all  law,  difference, 
or  antithesis;  but  when  we  make  our  first  acquaintance 
with  it,  it  already  presents  the  antitheses  of  matter  and 
force,  of  attractive  and  repulsive  forces,  and,  commonly,  it 
is  already  atomically  discrete,  and  in  all  cases  the  reign  of 
definite  law  is  assumed  as  self-evident.  Such  contradictions 
are  necessary  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  No  process  of  rea- 
soning can  ever  deduce  a  definite  conclusion  from  indefinite 
premises;  and  no  mind  will  ever  find  an  explanation  of  a 
definite  outcome  in  positing  an  indefinite  antecedent. 

Thus,  whichever  way  we  work  it,  the  notion  of  pure  be- 
ing appears  untenable.  When,  from  the  side  of  the  defi- 
nite, we  attempt  to  reach  the  indefinite,  we  violate  the  law 
of  the  sufficient  reason  which  demands  in  the  cause  some 
determining  ground  for  the  specific  character  of  the  effect. 
On  the  other  hand,  when,  assuming  the  indefinite,  we  at- 
tempt to  reach  the  definite,  we  find  no  passage  whatever. 
It  founds  nothing,  and  leads  to  nothing.  Not  only  is  it 
indistinguishable  from  the  void,  it  is  the  void,  the  non- 
existent. 

But  the  result  of  the  previous  discussion  is  more  negative 
than  positive.  We  learn  that  being  must  be  conceived  as 
something  definite  and  specific,  but  we  have  no  insight  into 
the  specific  content  of  the  notion.  What,  then,  is  being? 
It  is  often  defined  as  substance  or  substratum.  It  is  that 
which  has  or  supports  qualities.  But  such  definitions  are 
purely  formal,  and  do  not  tell  how  this  substance  must  be 
conceived,  in  order  to  make  it  adequate  to  its  function. 
We  shall  find  it  well  to  shift  the  question  a  little,  and  ask 
what  we  mean  by  predicating  being  of  things.  It  may  be 
said  that  being  is  a  simple  idea,  and  admits  of  no  explana- 
tion. But  if  we  allow  this,  there  must  always  be  some 


40  METAPHYSICS. 

ground  for  saying  that  a  thing  exists.  If,  then,  being  and 
non-being  were  perfectly  undefinable  notions,  there  must 
still  be  some  mark  by  which  we  distinguish  one  from  the 
other ;  otherwise,  there  would  be  no  more  ground  for  say- 
ing that  a  thing  exists  than  for  saying  that  it  does  not  exist. 
Common-sense  would,  at  first,  be  tempted  to  find  this  mark 
in  sense-phenomena.  The  real  is  that  which  can  be  seen  or 
touched.  But  common-sense  would  quickly  perceive  the 
untenability  of  this  view,  and  the  idealism  implied  in  it. 
Common-sense  holds  that  things  exist  when  unseen  and  un- 
touched, and  that  many  things  exist  which  can  never  be 
seen  or  touched.  Nor  would  common-sense  be  content  to 
put  the  existence  even  of  sensible  objects  in  their  perma- 
nent perceptibility  by  every  one  under  the  proper  condi- 
tions. A  permanent  and  regular  possibility  of  phenomena  is 
not  what  common-sense  means  by  a  material  object.  It  holds 
that  perception  recognizes  rather  than  makes  things,  and, 
hence,  that  their  being  is  more  than  their  being  perceived. 
But  all  this  only  makes  it  the  more  important  that  we  should 
know  what  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of  being.  Since  this 
mark  cannot  be  found  in  sense-phenomena,  it  must  be  sought 
elsewhere ;  and,  after  much  casting  about  in  thought,  it  ap- 
pears that  the  distinctive  mark  of  being  consists  in  some 
power  of  action.  Things,  when  not  perceived,  are  still  said 
to  exist,  because  of  the  belief  that,  though  not  perceived, 
they  are  in  interaction  with  one  another,  mutually  deter- 
mining and  determined.  Things  are  distinguished  from 
non-existence  by  this  power  of  action  and  mutual  determi- 
nation. When  this  is  omitted  from  our  thought,  the  affir- 
mation of  their  existence  is  perfectly  meaningless,  as  well  as 
groundless.  The  things  said  to  exist  might,  in  that  case, 
with  equal  propriety,  be  said  not  to  exist.  In  speaking  of 
pure  being,  we  said  that  only  the  determined  can  exist ;  we 
must  now  supplement  this  by  adding  that  only  the  deter- 
mining has  existence. 
We  reach  this  conclusion  as  the  only  means  of  saving 


.  THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  41 

ourselves  from  Berkeley.  "We  reach  it  equally  by  observ- 
ing the  function  of  the  notion.  Being  itself  is  no  fact  of 
experience,  but  rather  a  mental  datum.  Experience  reach- 
es only  to  phenomena,  and  being  is  posited  for  their  ex- 
planation. But  the  phenomenal  world  manifests  incessant 
change  and  movement ;  and  if  we  are  not  content  to  rest 
in  the  thought  of  a  groundless  show,  we  have  to  supple- 
ment these  changes  by  the  notion  of  an  agent  or  agents 
which  cause  them.  Actor  and  act  are  the  two  basal  catego- 
ries of  thought,  and  when  we  have  referred  a  phenomenon 
to  its  cause  or  causes,  we  have  explained  it.  Hence  those 
things  which  we  posit  to  explain  the  phenomenal  world 
must  be  viewed  as  its  active  ground.  When  we  grasp  this 
fact,  it  becomes  clear  that  being  must  be  viewed  as  essen- 
tially active;  for  any  other  conception  makes  it  inadequate 
to  the  facts.  We  get  no  insight  into  action  by  positing  the 
inactive,  and  we  get  no  insight  into  the  nature  and  changes 
of  the  phenomenal  world  by  positing  a  ground  of  being 
which  does  nothing.  However  thick  the  mental  fog  may 
be,  it  must  always  be  plain  that  only  the  active  will  explain 
action.  Hence  causality  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of  be- 
ing, and  by  being  we  mean  cause.  Whatever  is  to  be  con- 
sidered as  existing  must  be  capable  of  action  in  some  form. 
But  here  an  objection  comes  up  from  the  side  of  com- 
mon-sense, and  we  must  consider  it  before  advancing.  It 
will  be  urged  that  we  have  assumed  that  all  being  is  active, 
or  causal,  while  there  is  also  purely  passive  being.  Our 
definition  applies  only  to  one  realm  of  being,  and  ignores 
the  other.  Common-sense,  then,  moves  to  amend  the  defi- 
nition so  as  to  read,  Being  is  not  only  whatever  can  act,  but 
also  \vhatever  can  be  acted  upon.  It  is  quite  willing  to 
allow  that  all  reality  falls  into  one  or  the  other  of  these 
classes.  But  the  amendment  is  not  accepted.  This  notion 
of  purely  passive  being  is  a  misleading  abstraction  from  our 
physical  experience.  Matter  appears  to  us  as  inert  and  re- 
ceptive, and  we  overlook  entirely  both  its  force  of  resistance 


42  METAPHYSICS.  . 

and  reaction,  by  which  we  become  aware  of  its  existence, 
and  also  the  physical  teaching  concerning  its  dynamic  nat- 
ure. Thus  we  come  to  the  notion  of  passive  being,  which 
serves  merely  as  the  object  of  another's  activity.  But,  in 
truth,  this  notion  is  a  pure  contradiction.  Action  upon 
something  which  does  not  react  is  the  same  as  action  upon 
nothing.  In  order  that  being  shall  be  acted  upon,  it  must 
be  able  to  react  and  condition  the  actor ;  and  thus  it  comes 
under  the  general  class  of  agents,  or  things  capable  of  de- 
termining other  things.  Where  this  is  not  the  case,  action 
is  not  action  upon  something,  but  a  pure  creation  of  both 
its  object  and  its  effect.  In  action  between  things,  the  reac- 
tion of  the  thing  acted  upon  is  necessarily  a  factor  of  the 
effect.  It  is  common  to  hear  matter  spoken  of  as  the  pas- 
sive object  of  force ;  but  an  object  without  any  power  of  its 
own  would  be  no  object.  It  is  also  called  a  vehicle  of  force; 
but,  overlooking  the  sense  in  which  matter  can  be  a  vehicle, 
it  is  plain  that  nothing  can  be  a  vehicle  of  force  which  has 
no  power  in  itself.  Thus  a  lever  could  not  transmit  energy 
if  its  own  forces  of  cohesion  and  resistance  did  not  give  it  a 
definite  rigidity  and  coherence.  Hence,  while  the  distinc- 
tion between  being  which  acts  and  being  which  is  acted 
upon  is  valid  in  daily  practice,  it  is  of  no  use  in  metaphys- 
ics ;  but  both  classes  must  be  viewed  as  active.  If,  however, 
any  one  is  still  favorably  disposed  towards  passive  being,  let 
him  consider  in  what  the  notion  of  such  being  differs  from 
that  of  non-existence. 

Allowing,  however,  that  the  notion  itself  is  possible,  we 
have  still  to  ask  what  help  we  get  in  explaining  the  uni- 
verse from  this  assumption  of  passive  being.  What  does  it 
do,  found,  or  explain  ?  The  reply  will  be  that,  no  matter 
whether  it  explains  anything  or  not,  it  is  given  in  experi- 
ence as  a  fact,  and  that  we  are  in  constant  contact  with  it 
through  our  senses.  We  ask, again,  How  do  we  know  that? 
The  bare  existence  of  a  thing  is  never  a  sufficient  ground 
for  its  perception ;  if  it  were,  we  ought  to  be  percipient  of 


THE   NOTION  OF  BEING.  43 

all  existence.  Hence,  in  order  to  the  perception  of  a  thing, 
there  must  be  some  corresponding  action  upon  us ;  if  not  by 
the  thing  itself,  then  by  something  else.  But,  by  hypothe- 
sis, this  passive  being  does  not  affect  us,  and  therefore  we 
can  perceive  it  only  as  some  other  being  acts  upon  us.  The 
passive  being,  then,  not  only  explains  nothing,  but  its  exist- 
ence can  never  be  known  except  through  a  revelation.  Now, 
whoever  will  reflect  that  this  being  does  and  explains  noth- 
ing, and  that  all  the  effects  upon  him,  by  which  he  becomes 
aware  of  its  existence,  are  the  activities  of  something  else, 
will  see  that  there  is,  and  can  be,  no  warrant  for  introducing 
such  a  factor  into  a  philosophical  system. 

No  argument  is  needed  to  make  this  point  clearer.  Wheth- 
er we  consider  the  differentia  or  the  function  of  the  notion, 
it  is  equally  plain  that  only  the  causal  can  have  real  exist- 
ence. Yet  so  inveterate  are  the  prejudices  of  the  senses, 
that  nothing  short  of  criticising  them  in  detail  will  free  us 
from  them.  Thus,  in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said,  we  are 
met  by  the  objection  that  matter  is  certainly  inert  and  inac- 
tive. Here,  then,  is  a  most  palpable  proof  that  all  being  is 
not  causal — a  proof  which  no  amount  of  logical  juggling 
and  sophistical  mystification  will  ever  sweep  away.  We 
almost  fear  to  ask,  in  reply,  how  we  know  that  matter,  as 
thus  conceived,  exists;  for  common-sense  will  not  endure 
chaffing,  and,  when  hard  pressed  by  difficulties,  is  apt  to 
stamp  on  the  ground  as  an  end  of  all  discussion.  To  the 
children  of  the  dragon's  teeth,  as  Plato  calls  the  disciples  of 
the  senses,  there  is  nothing  so  real  as  the  ground,  and  a 
lump  is  the  typical  conception  of  reality.  Nevertheless 
— though  with  fear  and  trembling,  lest  some  child  of  the 
dragon's  teeth  should  overhear  us — we  will  venture  to  ask, 
How  do  we  know  that  matter,  as  thus  conceived,  exists? 
By  definition  it  does  nothing,  and  hence  it  is  from  no  action 
of  matter  itself  that  we  become  aware  of  its  existence.  And 
this  existence — which  merely  is,  without  doing  anything — 
in  what  is  it  different  from  the  bare  idea  of  existence  ?  But 


44  METAPHYSICS. 

we  fear  lest  we  exasperate  the  dragon's  progeny  by  pressing 
these  questions,  and  we  take  another  standpoint  from  which 
to  reply  to  the  objection.  If  we  allow  matter  to  be  a  true 
existence,  and  not  merely  a  manifestation  of  some  basal 
power,  we  have  to  admit  that  its  nature  is  altogether  differ- 
ent from  what  appears.  To  begin  with,  the  reality  of  mat- 
ter as  it  appears  is  a  multitude  of  non-appearing  elements, 
and  its  inaction  is  only  in  seeming.  Apparent  matter  has 
no  true  being;  the  elements  only  truly  exist.  And  these 
elements  are  without  the  properties  of  materiality  which 
belong  to  the  mass,  but,  by  their  interactions,  they  found 
materiality.  Just  as  the  elements  of  a  chemical  compound 
have  not  the  properties  of  the  compound,  but  produce  them, 
so  the  elements  in  general  have  not  the  properties  of  the 
mass,  but  produce  them.  Nor  does  the  mass  result  from 
the  simple  juxtaposition  of  the  elements,  as  a  heap  of  bricks 
results  from  piling  single  bricks  together,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  relation  of  the  elements  is  purely  dynamic.  The 
solidity  of  the  mass  is  not  the  integral  of  the  solidities  of 
the  elements,  but  depends  entirely  upon  a  certain  balance 
of  attraction  and  repulsion  among  the  elements.  Its  resist- 
ance to  fracture  and  extension,  also,  depends  not  on  a  rigid 
continuity  of  being,  but  on  the  attractions  which  hold  the 
parts  together.  Hence  we  may  say  that  materiality  is  but 
the  phenomenal  product  of  a  dynamism  beneath  it.  And 
in  this  under-realra,  as  physics  teaches,  all  is  incessant  activ- 
ity. Everything  stands  in  the  most  complex  relations  of 
interaction  to  everything  else.  When  this  fact  is  fairly 
grasped,  we  see  that  the  alleged  experience  of  inactive  be- 
ing turns  out  to  be  only  an  experience  of  phenomena.  Of 
course,  no  one  denies  the  phenomena  of  rest  and  inaction, 
but  physics  shows  that  they  are  only  the  phenomenal  re- 
sultants of  incessant  basal  activities.  Equilibrium  is  bal- 
anced action.  Eest  is  the  resultant  of  the  conspiring  ener- 
gies of  the  system.  This  is  the  view  towards  which  physics 
tends,  and  any  other  would  result  in  making  matter  a  pure 


THE  NOTION   OF  BEING.  45 

phenomena.     Only  on  the  dynamic  theory  of  matter  can 
the  proper  existence  of  matter  be  affirmed. 

But,  it  will  be  further  urged,  surely  the  law  of  inertia  is 
one  of  the  best-established  laws  of  matter.  All  mechanical 
science  is  built  upon  it,  and  results  constantly  verify  it. 
This  objection,  also,  is  an  unfortunate  one.  It  rests  upon 
the  etymology  of  the  word,  rather  than  a  knowledge  of  its 
meaning.  The  doctrine  has  a  double  signification.  It  first 
denies,  not  activity  on  the  part  of  a  material  element,  but 
only  spontaneity  with  regard  to  its  own  space-relations.  An 
element  cannot  change  its  own  space-relations  without  the 
aid  of  some  other.  If  at  rest,  it  must  remain  at  rest ;  if  in 
motion,  it  must  remain  in  motion,  unless  acted  upon  from 
without.  But  the  law  does  not  deny  that  a  series  of  ele- 
ments may,  by  their  mutual  interactions,  pass  through  a 
great  variety  of  changes.  Advantage  is  often  taken  of  the 
fact  that  the  name,  matter,  is  one,  to  forget  that  the  thing 
is  many ;  and  thus  the  conclusion  is  drawn  that  the  law  of 
inertia  forbids  any  action  on  the  part  of  the  elements.  The 
second  factor  of  the  doctrine  is,  that  every  material  thing 
opposes  a  resistance  to  every  change  of  its  space-relations; 
hence  the  phrase,  force  of  inertia,  which  has  so  scandalized 
the  etymologists.  In  either  sense,  the  doctrine  is  far  enough 
from  affirming  a  mere  passivity  on  the  part  of  matter.  There 
is  nothing,  therefore,  in  our  experience  of  matter  which 
conflicts  with  the  doctrine  that  all  being  is  active  or  causal. 
"We  conclude,  then,  once  more,  that  being  is  cause,  and  that 
the  only  mark  of  distinction  between  being  and  non-being 
is  a  power  of  action  of  some  sort. 

We  have  carefully  put  pure  being  out  at  the  door,  and 
now  it  threatens  to  come  back  through  the  window.  It 
wul  be  said  that  our  definition  of  being  is  not  a  definition, 
but  only  gives  a  mark  which  being  must  have.  But,  back 
of  the  power  by  which  being  is  distinguished  from  non- 
being,  lies  being  itself,  and  we  seek  to  know  what  this  is. 


46  METAPHYSICS. 

The  notion  of  cause  admits  of  analysis  into  the  ideas  of  be- 
ing and  power,  and  hence  cause  is  the  union  of  the  two. 
The  being  has  the  power,  and  the  power  inheres  in  the  be- 
ing. In  reply  to  this  objection,  we  admit  the  separation  of 
the  ideas  in  thought,  but  deny  that  they  can  be  separated  in 
reality.  The  attempt  to  separate  them  in  fact  leads  to  in- 
soluble contradictions,  and  this  shows  that  the  distinction  is 
a  logical  one.  We  have,  then,  to  discuss  the  metaphysical 
meaning  of  inherence. 

To  the  question,  In  what  sense  does  a  thing  have  or  pos- 
sess power?  the  common  answer  is,  that  the  power  inheres 
in  the  thing.  But  this  merely  shifts  the  problem,  for  the 
meaning  of  this  inherence  is  not  clear.  Uncritical  thought 
contents  itself  with  a  few  sense-images,  and  does  not  pursue 
the  problem  further.  Spokes  in  a  wheel,  or  pegs  in  a  beam, 
or  pins  in  a  cushion,  serve  to  illustrate  to  careless  thinking 
the  nature  of  inherence.  Matter,  which  to  the  dragon's  de- 
scendants is  ever  the  type  of  being,  is  not  in  itself  forceful, 
but  forces  inhere  in  it.  Thereby  matter  becomes  active, 
and  force  gains  an  object  or  fulcrum,  etc.  These  forces  do 
•all  that  is  done ;  they  found  all  change,  quality,  and  differ- 
ence ;  but  the  matter  is  supposed  to  provide  them  a  resting- 
place.  This  is  the  current  conception,  and,  in  some  of  its 
forms,  it  rules  most  of  our  scientific  speculations.  In  this 
view  there  is  a  division  of  labor  in  reality.  There  is  one 
part  which  simply  exists  and  furnishes  the  being.  It  does 
nothing  but  be.  The  activities  are  next  supplied  by  force 
or  power,  which  finds  in  the  being  a  seat,  home,  fulcrum, 
etc.  We  have,  then,  a  certain  core  of  rigid  reality,  which 
exists  unchanged  through  the  changes  of  the  thing,  and 
supplies  the  necessary  stiffening ;  and  around  this  we  have 
a  varying  atmosphere  of  activities,  which  are  said  to  be  due 
to  force.  But  it  is  plain  that  we  have  fallen  back  again  into 
the  abandoned  notion  of  pure  being.  The  being  does  not 
account  for  the  power.  It  is  a  pure  negation,  and  is  utterly 
worthless.  The  power  and  the  being  are  in  no  relation  ex- 


THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  47 

cept  that  of  mutual  contradiction.  The  only  possible  reason 
which  even  thoughtlessness  can  urge  for  positing  such  being 
would  be,  that  power  must  have  some  support;  but  it  is 
plain  that  this  passive  negation  could  not  support  anything. 
The  force,  or  power,  in  such  a  case  would  be  self-support- 
ing, and  thus  we  should  come  to  the  doctrine  often  held, 
that  reality  is  nothing  but  force.  The  existence  of  force 
would  never  warrant  the  affirmation  of  the  forceless,  and 
the  forceless  could  never  be  viewed  as  the  origin  of  force. 
These  difficulties  serve  to  show  that  the  distinction  between 
being  and  force,  or  power,  is  only  logical. 

The  truth  is,  that  in  this  separation  between  a  thing  and 
its  power  we  are  the  dupes  of  language.  In  order  to  speak 
of  anything,  we  must  adopt  the  form  of  the  judgment,  and 
put  the  thing  as  the  subject  and  the  attribute  as  the  predi- 
cate. In  this  way  language  makes  an  unreal  distinction  be- 
tween the  thing  and  its  attributes,  and  unreflecting  common- 
sense  mistakes  the  logical  distinction  for  a  real  one.  Indeed, 
language  often  makes  a  distinction  between  a  thing  and  it- 
self. Thus  man  is  often  said  to  have  a  mind  or  a  soul. 
Here  man  appears  as  the  possessor  of  himself;  and  it  is  not 
until  we  ask  who  this  possessor  is,  and  how  he  possesses  the 
soul,  that  we  become  aware  that  language  is  playing  a  trick 
with  us,  and  that  man  does  not  have,  but  is,  a  soul.  Things 
as  existing  do  not  have  the  distinction  of  substance  and  at- 
tribute which  they  have  in  our  thought.  They  do  not  con- 
sist of  subjects  to  which  predicates  are  externally  attached, 
as  if  they  might  exist  apart  from  the  predicates,  but  they 
exist  only  in  the  predicates.  Thus  we  say  that  a  triangle 
has  sides  and  angles ;  but  though  we  thus  posit  the  triangle 
as  having  the  sides,  etc.,  a  moment's  reflection  convinces  us 
that  the  triangle  exists  only  in  its  specific  attributes.  If  we 
should  allow  that  the  triangle  could  be  separated,  in  reality, 
from  its  attributes,  we  should  fall  into  absurdity.  We  could 
not  tell  how  the  triangle  exists  apart  from  attributes,  nor 
how  the  attributes  are  joined  to  it.  Now  the  distinction 


48  METAPHYSICS. 

between  a  thing  and  its  power  is  of  this  sort.  It  is  perfectly 
valid  in  thought,  but  we  cannot  allow  it  to  represent  a  real 
distinction  in  the  thing  without  falling  back  into  the  notion 
of  pure  being  and  its  attendant  difficulties.  We  come,  then, 
to  the  conclusion  that  being  and  power  are  inseparable  in 
fact,  and  that  they  are  simply  the  two  factors  into  which  the 
indivisible  reality  falls  for  our  thought.  The  causal  reality 
cannot  be  viewed  as  containing  in  itself  any  distinction  of 
substance  and  attribute,  or  of  being  and  power.  It  must  be 
affirmed  as  a  causal  unit,  and,  as  such,  uncompounded  and 
indivisible. 

In  further  justification  of  this  view,  we  next  point  out 
that  the  notion  of  power  is,  in  every  case,  a  pure  abstrac- 
tion, and,  as  such,  is  incapable  of  inherence.  What  sponta- 
neous thought  means  by  this  expression  is  no  doubt  true, 
but  the  meaning  is  incorrectly  expressed.  We  speak  of  the 
soul,  or  of  the  physical  elements,  as  having  various  powers, 
and  thus  the  thought  arises  that  these  powers  are  true  enti- 
ties in  the  thing,  which  underlie  all  activity.  Accordingly, 
it  is  not  the  elements  which  attract,  but  the  force  of  attrac- 
tion. It  is  not  the  atoms  which  act  in  chemical  combina- 
tion, but  affinity  does  the  work.  If  a  heated  or  electric  body 
produces  sundry  effects,  the  body  itself  is  not  the  agent,  but 
heat  or  electricity  is  called  in.  Thus  the  atom  appears  as  a 
bundle  of  forces,  each  of  which  is  independent  of  all  the 
rest,  but  all  of  which,  in  some  strange  way,  make  the  atom 
their  home.  Now  this  will  never  do.  These  separate  forces 
are  only  abstractions  from  different  classes  of  atomic  action. 
If  there  be  any  atom,  the  actor  in  each  case  is  the  atom  it- 
self, but  the  atom  is  such  that  its  activity  is  not  limited  to  a 
single  direction,  but  falls  into  several  classes.  This  fact  we 
seek  to  express  by  the  notion  of  separate  inherent  forces, 
but  these  are  never  more  than  descriptions  of  the  fact 
mentioned.  When  we  say  that  an  element  has  a  power  of 
gravity,  affinity,  etc.,  we  say  nothing  more  than  that  the 
element  can  act  in  these  several  ways.  The  powers  are  not 


THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  4.9 

separate  instruments  which  the  thing  employs,  but  only  ab- 
stractions from  the  thing's  action.  Every  act  of  the  atom, 
in  whatever  form,  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  atom  itself,  and 
not  to  forces  in  it ;  and  every  act  of  the  atom  is  an  act  of  the 
entire  atom.  Any  other  conception  leads  to  contradictio: 
The  same  is  true  for  the  other  illustration.  Will,  intellect, 
and  sensibility  are  not  independent  powers  in  the  soul,  but 
only  names  for  different  forms  of  the  one  soul's  action. 
The  distinction  of  faculties  in  the  soul  is  a  convenient  clas- 
sification in  psychological  study  ;  but  when  the  faculties  are 
viewed  as  separate  factors  in  the  soul,  we  involve  ourselves 
in  absurdities.  In  many  treatises  of  the  earlier  psychology, 
this  distinction  was  carried  so  far  as  to  leave  the  soul  noth- 
ing to  do  but  to  have  faculties.  In  the  doctrine  of  the  will, 
especially,  this  view  wrought  great  mischief.  The  will  was 
hypostasized  and  separated  from  the  intellect,  and  thus  it 
was  made  to  appear  as  a  blind  arbitrariness,  lunging  about 
in  the  dark,  and  without  any  direction  from  within  or  with- 
out. In  this  way  freedom  was  reduced  to  chance,  and  de- 
terminism was  invoked  as  a  relief.  But  this  conception  of 
the  faculties  is  at  last  banished  from  psychology.  Every 
act  is  an  act,  not  of  the  will,  but  of  the  entire  soul.  Every 
feeling  is  an  affection,  not  of  the  sensibility,  but  of  the  en- 
tire soul.  Every  thought  is  an  act,  not  of  the  intellect,  but 
of  the  one  and  indivisible  soul.  And  so  we  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  power  in  general  is  not  a  thing  or  an  instru- 
ment, but  only  an  abstraction  from  the  activity  of  some 
agent.  Hence  the  question,  How  can  power  inhere  in  be- 
ing, disappears,  because  the  phrase,  inherent  power,  repre- 
sents no  reality,  but  only  an  abstraction.  The  reality  is  al- 
ways an  agent.  How  an  agent  can  be  made,  we  do  not 
claim  to  know ;  but  it  is  plain  that  it  is  not  made  by  join- 
ing the  two  abstractions  of  power  and  pure  being.  How 
an  agent  can  act  is  also  unknown  ;  but  it  is  plain  that  we  get 
no  insight  into  the  possibility  by  positing  a  rigid  core  of 
inert  reality  in  the  agent. 

4 


50  METAPHYSICS. 

Inherence,  then,  has  no  metaphysical  meaning.  The  fact 
is  an  agent,  one  and  indivisible,  and  this  agent  is  active 
through  and  through.  But,  to  explain  the  agency,  we  are 
not  content  with  the  agent  itself,  but  form  the  abstraction 
of  power,  and  smuggle  it  into  the  thing.  When  the  forms 
of  agency  are  many,  we  form  a  corresponding  number  of 
these  abstractions,  and  give  each  a  separate  existence  in  the 
thing.  Then  it  becomes  a  tremendous  puzzle  to  know  how 
these  powers  inhere  in  the  thing,  or  how  the  thing  can  use 
them  without  an  additional  power  of  using  them.  The  puz- 
zle is  solved  by  the  insight  that  these  inherent  powers  or 
forces  are  only  abstractions  from  the  activity  of  the  one  in- 
divisible agent.  The  only  case  in  which  power  is  not  such 
an  abstraction  is,  where  it  is  used  as  identical  with  being,  as 
when  we  speak  of  the  malign,  or  heavenly,  or  invisible  pow- 
ers. Such  a  use  of  power,  instead  of  being,  has  the  advan- 
tage of  escaping  the  lumpish  implications  of  the  latter  word ; 
and  it  might  be  of  use  in  freeing  ourselves  from  the  bond- 
age of  sense-experience,  to  think  always  of  a  real  thing  as  a 
power.  In  this  sense  of  the  word,  we  should  say  that  all  the 
realities  of  the  universe  are  powers,  and  that  the  phenome- 
nal universe  is  but  the  manifestation  of  hidden  powers. 
We  conclude,  then,  that  a  thing  does  not  exist  by  virtue  of 
a  kernel  of  reality  which  is  in  it,  but  it  acquires  a  claim  to 
reality  through  the  activity  whereby  it  affirms  itself  as  a  de- 
termining factor  of  the  system.  It  exists  only  in  and  through 
its  activity.  Being  and  action  are  inseparable.  To  be  is  to 
act ;  the  inactive  is  the  non-existent. 

.  This  view  cannot  be  pictured  ;  it  must  be  thought.  Hence 
»  it  will  not  commend  itself  to  minds  which  think  onjy  in 
sense-images.  Although  reason  shows  the  inert  core  of  rig- 
id reality  to  be  a  useless  and  baseless  fiction,  they  will  still 
prefer  something  which  can  be  pictured  to  something  which 
can  be  thought.  Such  minds  are  joined  to  their  idols,  and 
must  be  left  alone.  But  less  ossified  minds,  also,  will  find 
some  difficulties  in  the  last  determinations  of  being.  It 


THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  51 

might  be  allowed  that  that  which  never  acts  is  unreal ;  but 
when  we  make  being  inseparable  from  action,  we  seem  to 
have  gone  too  far.  It  cannot  be  allowed  that  the  existent 
is  always  active.  But  this  scruple,  again,  is  the  product  of 
misread  sense-experience.  In  the  preceding  paragraphs,  we 
have  seen  that  experience  gives  no  hint  of  inactive  existence, 
and  it  is  plain  that  the  inactive  never  can  be  discovered  in 
external  experience.  The  notion  is  a  contradiction ;  for  M*C 
know  a  thing  to  exist  only  as  it  acts  upon  us.  Physics,  too, 
has  conducted  ns  behind  the  dead  rest  of  appearances,  and 
introduced  us  into  a  world  of  powers  in  incessant  and  un- 
wearied action.  It  is  only  in  the  mental  life  that  we  may 
hope  to  find  being  inactive  and  yet  real.  It  may  be  said  that 
consciousness  itself  may  cease,  and  all  the  mental  activities 
with  it,  while  we  know  that  we  have  existed  across  the  in- 
terval of  unconsciousness  and  inaction.  Possibly  a  correct 
philosophy  of  time  would  leave  this  objection  without  any 
foundation  ;  but,  without  entering  into  this  obscure  realm, 
we  may  point  out  that  the  conscious  activities  of  the  soul 
are  by  no  means  the  whole  of  its  activities.  It  is  in  con- 
stant relations  of  interaction  with  the  body,  which  are  not 
reported  in  consciousness,  and  very  much  takes  place  in  the 
mind  itself  which  does  not  rise  into  consciousness.  Indeed, 
the  conscious  life  of  the  soul  is  but  the  outcome,  under  the 
proper  circumstances,  of  its  basal  spontaneous  and  ceaseless 
activity.  The  soul  is  a  power  among  many  other  powers, 
and  is  in  interaction  with  them,  and,  when  certain  condi- 
tions are  fulfilled,  it  rises  not  into  activity,  but  into  con- 
scious activity.  Experience  lends  no  aid  and  comfort  to 
the  notion  that  being  can  exist  in  complete  inaction.  Its 
validity  can  be  determined  only  by  reason. 

Forthwith  the  objector  urges  that,  if  a  thing  should  be- 
come perfectly  inactive,  it  would  yet  continue  to  exist. 
We  ask,  in  reply,  How  do  we  know  that  ?  How  could  we 
distinguish  this  inaction  of  the  thing  from  its  non-existence  ? 
The  seeming  support  which  this  view  finds  in  experience  is 


52  METAPHYSICS. 

the  fact  that  a  thing  already  in  interaction  with  the  whole 
universe  may,  upon  a  change  in  its  relations,  pass  into  new 
forms  of  activity.  But  this  relative  inaction  is  never  to  be 
mistaken  for  absolute  inaction.  It  may  be  said  that,  since 
this  or  that  particular  form  of  action  is  not  necessary  to  be- 
ing, therefore  no  form  is  necessary.  But  this  confounds 
the  concept  with  reality.  The  concept  of  motion  implies 
no  specific  velocity,  but  every  real  motion  must  have  some 
specific  velocity.  The  reality  of  a  thing,  also,  does  not  im- 
ply that  it  acts  in  this  ^or  that  way,  but  only  that  it  acts  in 
some  way.  The  thing  which  does  nothing,  either  within 
itself  or  to  others,  exactly  meets  our  conception  of  non- 
existence.  But  we  may  say  that  there  is  still  this  very  great 
difference,  that  the  inactive  being  can,  upon  occasion,  pass 
into  action,  while  the  inactive  non-being  cannot.  Hence 
there  must  be  a  back-lying  core  of  being  which  exists,  wheth- 
er it  act  or  not.  We  ask,  again,  How  do  we  know  that? 
How  do  we  know  that  a  thing  can  pass  out  of  all  relations 
of  interaction  and  community  with  the  universe,  so  that  it 
no  longer  exists  for  the  universe,  nor  the  universe  for  it  ? 
And  if  it  should  occur,  how  would  we  distinguish  such  a 
fact  from  the  destruction  of  one  thing  and  the  creation  of 
another?  It  is  plain  that  we  are  here  dealing  with  a  fig- 
ment of  the  imagination.  This  something,  which  has  passed 
into  complete  inaction,  is  merely  the  shadow  of  a  thought, 
like  the  notion  of  pure  being,  and  the  only  thing  which 
gives  it  any  body  whatever  is  the  misread  intimations  of 
the  senses.  That  such  a  relapse  into  nothingness  is  possible 
is  totally  without  proof ;  and  the  only  reason  why  we  affirm 
continuity  of  being  in  things  is,  that  they  never  pass  into 
inaction.  Thus  we  affirm  the  indestructibility  of  matter, 
because  we  never  find  it  relapsing  into  inactivity.  More- 
over, such  a  relapse,  if  it  were  possible,  must  have  some 
ground.  Action  can  no  more  cease  than  begin  without  a 
cause.  The  same  feelings  of  weariness  which  formerly  made 
the  first  law  of  motion  incredible  to  sense-bound  minds  lead 


THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  53 

the  same  class  of  minds  to  think  that  action  can  cease  with- 
out a  cause.  No  one  ever  imagined  that  motion  could  begin 
without  a  cause,  but  every  one  thought  it  credible  that  it 
should  cease  without  a  cause.  But,  when  thought  is  steady, 
it  becomes  clear  the  cessation  as  well  as  the  beginning  of 
either  motion  or  action  is  a  change,  and,  as  such,  demands  a 
cause  as  much  as  its  beginning.  But  the  ground  for  the 
cessation  of  action  can  lie  only  either  in  the  self-determina- 
tion of  the  agent,  or  in  some  failure  of  energy  in  the  agent, 
or  in  some  repressive  action  of  other  agents.  The  first  no- 
tion is  a  contradiction.  The  second  would  be,  strictly,  a  re- 
lapse into  non-existence ;  and  the  third  would  be  a  destruc- 
tion of  the  thing.  If  any  action  of  external  agents  deprived 
a  thing  of  all  energy,  and  extinguished  all  resistance,  the 
thing  would  be  destroyed.  Hence,  that  a  thing  should  pass 
into  complete  inaction  would  be  equivalent  to  its  passage 
out  of  existence.  We  return,  then,  to  our  view  that  being 
is  essentially  active,  and  that  a  thing  is  only  as  it  acts. 

Several  difficulties  remain  for  mention.  Must  not  being 
exist  before  action  ?  Or,  could  there  be  any  action,  unless 
being  can  exist  apart  from  action  ?  Certainly,  a  thing  must 
exist  in  order  to  act,  but,  on  this  theory,  it  must  act  in  or- 
der to  exist,  which  is  absurd.  This  difficulty  is,  partly,  a 
repetition  of  a  previous  objection,  which  confounded  some 
particular  case  of  action  with  action  in  general.  A  thing 
does,  indeed,  exist  before  the  specific  acts  which  we  observe, 
but  not  before  all  action.  For  the  rest,  the  difficulty  rests 
upon  a  confusion  of  logical  with  temporal  antecedence.  The 
postulate  of  action  is  an  agent,  but  this  agent  is  not  tempo- 
rally antecedent  to  the  action.  Action  is  a  dynamic  conse- 
quence of  being,  and  is  coexistent  with  it.  Neither  can  be 
thought  without  the  other,  and  neither  was  before  the  other. 
Being  did  not  first  exist,  and  then  act ;  neither  did  it  act  be- 
fore it  existed ;  but  both  being  and  action  are  given  in  in- 
dissoluble unity.  Being  has  its  existence  only  in  its  action, 
and  the  action  is  possible  only  through  the  being.  The 


54:  METAPHYSICS. 

common  doctrine  of  inherence  makes  a  kind  of  spatial  dis- 
tinction between  a  thing  and  its  activities;  the  objection 
we  are  considering  seeks  to  make  a  corresponding  tem- 
poral distinction.  Both  views  are  alike  untenable.  Met- 
aphysically considered,  being  is  self-centred  activity,  with- 
out distinction  of  parts  or  dates.  In  our  thinking,  we  sep- 
arate the  agent  from  the  agency,  but,  in  reality,  both  are 
posited  together ;  indeed,  each  is  but  the  implication  of  the 
other.  "We  would  not  accept  the  scholastic  doctrine,  that 
being  is  pure  activity ;  for  the  act  cannot  be  conceived  with- 
out the  agent.  But  we  deny  that  the  agent  can,  in  reality, 
be  separated  from  agency ;  each  exists,  and  is  possible,  only 
in  the  other. 

Another  scruple  is  as  follows.  The  idea  of  being  admits 
of  no  comparison.  The  mightiest  exists  no  more  than  the 
feeblest.  Nothing  can  be  more  real  than  any  other  thing ; 
and,  in  so  far  as  things  are  real,  they  are  all  on  the  same 
plane.  But  if  to  be  is  to  act,  it  follows  that  the  most  active 
has  the  most  being.  This  objection  rests  on  confounding 
the  logical  notion  with  real  existence.  Whatever  falls  into 
a  class  does  so  by  virtue  of  possessing  a  certain  mark,  but 
this  mark  may  itself  vary  in  intensity  so  that,  while  all  the 
members  are  alike  in  the  class,  they  may  yet  fulfil  the  con- 
ditions of  membership  more  or  less  perfectly.  Whatever 
meets  certain  conditions  falls  under  the  notion  of  being ; 
and,  in  this  sense,  one  thing  exists  as  much  as  another. 
But  this  does  not  hinder  that  these  conditions  should  be 
fulfilled  more  or  less  extensively  and  intensively ;  and,  in 
this  sense,  one  thing  may  have  more  being  than  another. 
"Whatever  moves  at  all,  moves ;  and  yet  it  is  allowable  to 
say  that  one  thing  has  more  motion  than  another.  What- 
ever acts,  acts ;  and  yet  some  things  act  more  intensively 
and  extensively  than  others,  and,  in  this  sense,  they  have 
more  being  than  others.  Indeed,  the  only  measure  of  be- 
ing is  the  extent  and  intensity  of  its  action.  Being  is  not 
measured  by  yards  or  bushels,  but  solely  by  its  activity. 


THE  NOTION  OF  BEING.  55 

All  that  we  mean  by  saying  that  the  being  of  God  is  infi- 
nite is,  that  his  activity  is  unlimited,  both  in  intensity  and 
range.  "With  this  understanding,  the  notion  of  the  ens  real- 
issimum,  which  many  philosophers,  notably  Herbart,  have 
found  so  obnoxious,  is  both  admissible  and  demanded. 

In  dealing  with  detailed  objections,  there  is  always  dan- 
ger of  losing  sight  of  the  main  argument.  In  the  present 
case,  it  has  been  absolutely  necessary  to  consider  at  length 
many  difficulties  and  scruples  arising  from  our  bondage  to 
the  senses,  in  order  to  win  even  a  hearing  for  the  views  pre- 
sented. They  are  ostensibly  false,  and  only  a  lengthy  criti- 
cism avails  to  remove  the  misleading  clearness  of  current 
prejudices.  But,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  it  may  now  be 
allowed  to  repeat  the  argument  as  follows :  The  notion  of 
being  is,  in  itself,  purely  formal,  and  its  content  needs  to  be 
determined.  The  notion  of  pure  being  is  rejected,  (1)  as 
being  onhr  a  logical  concept,  and,  as  such,  incapable  of  real 
existence ;  and,  (2)  as  inadequate  to  the  functions  it  has  to 
perform.  There  is  no  progress  from  it  to  definite  being, 
and  there  is  no  regress  from  definite  being  to  it.  The  no- 
tion of  passive  or  inactive  being  is  also  rejected  as  a  whim 
of  the  imagination,  which  founds  nothing,  and  falls  back 
into  the  notion  of  pure  being.  Hence,  all  reality  must  be 
causal.  But,  in  the  popular  thought,  reality  itself  is  divided 
into  two  factors,  being  and  power.  This  distinction  is  only 
a  logical  one,  and  cannot  be  admitted  in  reality,  without 
falling  back  into  the  doctrine  of  pure  being.  Again,  in  the 
popular  thought,  a  thing  exists  by  virtue  of  a  certain  core 
of  reality  which  is  in  it,  and  which  supports  the  activities 
and  attributes  of  the  thing.  We  reject  this  core  as  a  prod- 
uct of  sense-bondage,  and  as  accounting  for  nothing,  if  al- 
lowed. We  reverse  this  popular  view,  by  rejecting  the  no- 
tion of  a  stuff  which  simply  exists,  and  furnishes  things 
with  the  necessary  reality.  For  us,  things  do  not  exist  be- 
cause of  a  certain  quantity  of  this  reality  which  is  in  them, 


56  METAPHYSICS. 

but  by  virtue  of  their  activity,  whereby  they  appear  as 
agents  in  the  system.  How  this  can  be  is  a  question  which 
involves  the  mystery  of  creation,  or  the  mystery  of  abso- 
lute being;  but  creation  is  not  the  work  of  the  philosopher. 
The  question  we  have  to  answer  is,  What  things  shall  we 
regard  as  existing  ?  And  the  answer  is,  Those  things  exist 
which  act,  and  not  those  which  have  a  lump  of  being  in 
them ;  for  there  is  no  fact  corresponding  to  the  latter 
phrase.  Things  do  not  have  being,  but  are ;  and  from 
them  the  notion  of  being  is  formed.  These  agents,  again, 
have  in  them  no  antithesis  of  passive  being  and  active  ener- 
gy, but  are  active  through  and  through.  Sense-associations 
and  our  own  feelings  of  weariness  render  it  difficult  to  con- 
ceive of  active  being  without  a  central  core  of  inert  solidity 
on  which  the  productive  activity  may  rest.  But  we  may 
free  ourselves  from  this  result  of  habit  by  persistently  ask- 
ing, (1)  what  reason  there  is  for  positing  such  a  core,  and, 
(2)  what  it  could  do,  if  posited. 

Before  closing,  something  more  must  be  said  about  the 
unity  of  being  to  which  reference  has  been  made.  This 
unity  does  not  mean  that  there  is  but  one  being  in  the  uni- 
verse, but  only  that  every  true  thing  is  a  unit  to  which  the 
idea  of  division  has  no  application.  We  use  it  only  as  deny- 
ing composition  or  plurality.  If  a  thing  were  compounded 
or  plural,  it  would  not  be  a  true  thing,  but  an  aggregate,  and 
the  reality  would  be  the  component  factors.  A  crowd  or  a 
suin  has  no  reality,  as  such ;  only  the  composing  units  are 
real.  The  thought  of  a  compound  is  impossible  without  the 
assumption  of  uncompounded  units ;  and  these  are  always 
the  true  realities.  Hence,  the  divisible  is  never  a  proper 
thing,  but  an  aggregate  or  sum.  But  this  unity  of  being  is 
not  to  be  confounded  with  simplicity,  and  hence  is  not  in- 
compatible with  complexity  and  variety.  Herbart  identi- 
fies the  two,  and  argues  that  the  unity  of  the  subject  is  in- 
compatible with  a  plurality  of  attributes.  This  objection 
rests  partly  upon  the  false  view  of  inherence  which  has 


THE  NOTION    OF  BEING.  57 

been  considered,  and  partly  upon  a  peculiar  theory  of  pred- 
ication. If  attributes  were  things,  and  inhered  in  the  sub- 
ject in  an  external  manner,  or  if  each  attribute  expressed 
the  essence,  the  objection  would  be  valid.  Incommensura- 
ble attributes,  on  this  view,  must  belong  to  different  things. 
Or,  if  the  activities  of  a  thing  were  activities  of  only  a  part 
of  the  thing,  again  the  objection  would  be  valid ;  for  proper 
things  have  no  parts.  Plurality  of  activities  is  compatible 
with  the  unity  of  the  thing  only  as  each  activity  is  the  ac- 
tivity of  the  whole  thing.  But  the  one  can  be  manifold 
without  being  many.  How  there  can  be  variety  in  unity 
we  cannot  tell,  any  more  than  we  can  tell  how  reality  is 
made,  but  it  is  given  as  a  fact  in  our  experience.  In  truth, 
we  have  direct  experience  of  only  one  unity,  the  conscious 
self;  and  this  unity  is  given  as  complex  or  manifold  in  its 
manifestations. 

Philosophers  have  made  great  efforts  to  explain  how  the 
one  can  be  manifold,  but  without  success.  Their  efforts 
have  generally  resulted  in  denying  either  the  manifoldness 
or  the  unity.  The  first  result  is  well  illustrated  in  the  Ele- 
atic  philosophy.  This  reduced  all  manifoldness  to  illusion, 
and  then  failed  to  explain  the  illusion.  The  other  extreme 
is  illustrated  by  Schelling's  doctrine  of  the  identity  of  oppo- 
sites  in  the  absolute,  to  which  reference  has  been  made. 
But  as  the  absolute  is  expressly  put  beyond  the  possibility 
of  consciousness,  it  soon  turns  out  that  the  alleged  identity 
is  only  the  identity  which  all  objects  have  for  vision  in  in- 
distinguishable darkness.  This  becomes  clear  when,  from 
Schelling's  absolute,  we  attempt  to  reach  the  world  again. 
Then  he  is  forced  to  posit  implicit  antitheses  and  "  dark  nat- 
ure-grounds" to  such  an  extent  that  the  absolute  disappears 
in  a  plurality  of  oppositions.  And  the  attempt  to  construe 
how  the  one  can  be  manifold  will  always  lead  to  one  of 
these  two  results ;  and  either  is  fatal  to  thought.  The  one 
conceived  as  pure  simplicity  leads  to  nothing,  and  explains 
nothing.  A  world  of  manifoldness  and  variety  can  never 


«rx*X-     C^^JLJCL^JU 

METAPHYSICS.     , 
•&•*-  c«M^c*Jtc.^xct 


be  deduced  from  its  contradiction.  But  the  other  view 
fails  to  reach  any  unity ;  it  hypostasizes  its  antitheses, 
and  smuggles  them  whole  into  the  one,  which  thus  becomes 
not  one,  but  an  aggregate.  Hence,  any  conception  of  being 
which  does  not  include  both  unity  in  variety  and  variety  in 
unity,  brings  thought  to  a  stand-still.  Both  of  the  errors 
mentioned  result  from  the  attempt  to  deduce  variety  from 
the  abstract  notion  of  unity,  and  unity  from  the  abstract 
notion  of  variety.  In  truth,  though  thought  demands  the 
union  of  both  in  an  indivisible  synthesis,  still,  if  we  had 
been  left  merely  to  think  about  the  problem,  we  should 
never  have  known  whether  it  was  soluble  or  not.  But  ex- 
perience comes  to  our  aid  in  this  indecision  of  the  under- 
standing, and,  in  our  consciousness  of  self  as  manifold,  shows 
that  the  problem  has  been  solved  in  reality,  though  thought 
be  unable  to  construe  it.  This  is  only  one  of  many  cases 
where  we  are  forced  to  allow  that  being  has  mysteries  which 
human  thought  cannot  grasp,  but  which  it  is  forced  to  rec- 
ognize as  facts.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  thought  is 
forced  to  accept  contradictions.  Unity,  as  the  opposite  of 
divisibility,  does  not  exclude  manifoldness,  but  only  plural- 
ity. How  unity  can  be  manifold  is,  indeed,  an  insoluble 
question ;  but  it  is,  properly,  no  more  insoluble  than  how 
unity  can  be  simple.  Both  questions  involve  the  problem 
we  declined  at  the  beginning,  How  is  being  made?  or,  How 
can  being  be  ?  We  cannot  be  expected  to  tell,  therefore, 
how  reality  has  met  this  or  that  demand  of  thought,  but 
only  to  show,  (1)  that  it  is  a  demand  of  thought,  and  (2) 
that  reality  has  met  the  demand,  though  we  know  not  how. 
As  the  result  of  the  whole  discussion,  we  conclude  that  ev- 
ery true  thing,  in  distinction  from  both  compounds  and 
phenomena,  must  be  regarded  as  a  definite  causal  unit. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS.  59 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  STATURE  OF  THINGS. 

IN  the  previous  chapter,  we  have  sought  to  show  that  be- 
ing does  not  exist,  but  that  certain  specific  things,  or  agents, 
are  the  only  realities.  Being  is  only  a  class-notion,  under 
which  things  fall,  not  because  of  a  piece  of  existence  in 
themselves,  but  by  virtue  of  their  activity.  The  conclusion 
reached  was,  that  the  universal  nature  of  being  is  to  act. 
But  this  conclusion  determines  the  nature  of  things  as  dis- 
tinguished from  non-existence  only,  and  not  as  distinguished 
from  one  another,  or  as  capable  of  their  peculiar  manifesta- 
tions. The  present  chapter  is  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  nat- 
ure in  the  latter  sense. 

This  which  we  call  the  nature  of  things  has  been  vari- 
ously denominated  as  the  essence,  the  what,  or  the  what- 
ness,  of  things ;  and  all  of  these  terms  refer,  not  to  the  exter- 
nal properties  of  things,  but  to  some  inner  principle,  where- 
by things  are  what  they  are.  But,  whatever  the  term,  the 
idea  is  entirely  familiar  to  our  spontaneous  thinking.  We 
believe  that  everything  is  what  it  is  because  of  its  nature, 
and  that  things  differ  because  they  have  different  natures. 
There  is  one  nature  of  matter,  and  another  of  spirit.  There 
is  one  nature  of  hydrogen,  and  another  of  chlorine.  But 
we  are  not  content  with  simply  affirming  the  existence  of 
such  a  nature ;  we  also  seek  to  know  what  it  is.  The  nature 
of  a  thing  expresses  the  thing's  real  essence;  and  we  hold 
that  we  have  no  true  knowledge  of  the  thing  until  we  grasp 
its  nature.  What  is  the  tiling?  and  what  is  its  nature  ?  are 


60  METAPHYSICS. 

identical  questions.  The  doubt  of  scepticism  most  often 
expresses  itself  by  questioning  whether  the  true  nature  of 
things  does  not  lie  beyond  the  possibility  of  knowledge. 
Such  is  the  theory  which  we  all  spontaneously  form.  It 
may  be  that  a  consideration  of  the  problem  of  change  and 
becoming  will  compel  us  greatly  to  modify  our  doctrine  of 
things ;  but,  for  the  present,  we  allow  that  things  exist  in 
the  common  meaning  of  the  word,  and  ask  how  we  are  to 
think  of  their  nature  or  true  essence.  What  is  the  general 
form  which  our  thought  of  a  thing's  nature  must  take  on  ? 

An  answer  results  directly  from  the  conclusions  of  the 
previous  chapter.  We  there  found  that  activity  is  the  fun- 
damental mark  of  all  being.  Whatever  truly  exists,  wheth- 
er matter  or  spirit,  must  be  viewed  as  essentially  active,  and 
as  differing,  therefore,  only  in  the  form  or  kind  of  activity. 
The  so-called  passive  properties  of  things  all  turn  out,  upon 
analysis,  to  depend  on  a  dynamism  beneath  them,  and  leave 
us  only  an  agent  in  action.  But,  in  order  that  being  should 
be  definite,  this  activity  must  have  a  definite  form  or  law. 
Activity  in  general,  like  being  in  general,  is  impossible ;  it 
is  merely  the  logical  notion,  from  which  the  specific  deter- 
minations which  belong  to  every  real  activity  have  been 
dropped.  Now  this  rule  or  law,  which  determines  the  form 
and  sequence  of  a  thing's  activities,  represents  to  our  thought 
the  nature  of  the  thing,  or  expresses  its  true  essence.  It  is 
in  this  law  that  the  defiuiteness  of  a  thing  is  to  be  found ; 
and  it  is  under  this  general  form  of  a  law  determining  the 
form  and  sequence  of  activity  that  we  must  think  of  the 
nature  of  the  thing.  But  when  we  say  that  things  differ 
only  in  the  form  or  kind  of  activity,  we  are  not  to  conclude 
that  they  all  have  a  common  being,  for  this  would  be  a  re- 
turn to  the  notion  of  pure  being.  We  are  incessantly  tempt- 
ed to  think  of  a  kind  of  raw  material,  which,  by  receiving 
different  determinations,  becomes  different  things,  and  we 
must  guard  ourselves  against  the  seduction.  Things  exist 
only  in  their  activities,  and  have  no  being  apart  from  them. 


THE  NATURE   OF  THINGS.  61 

They  arc,  in  brief,  concreted  formulas  of  action.  But  this 
conclusion  is  so  remote  from  our  ordinary  modes  of  think- 
ing that  we  must,  by  a  criticism  of  other  conceptions,  show 
that  we  are  shut  up  to  it. 

The  first  thought  of  common-sense  in  this  matter  is,  to 
find  the  nature  of  things  in  their  sense-qualities.  Accord- 
ingly, when  we  ask  what  a  thing  is  in  itself,  common-sense 
enumerates  its  sense-qualities.  Vinegar  is  sour,  aloes  are 
bitter,  sugar  is  sweet.  But  a  moment's  reflection  shows  the 
invalidity  of  this  crude  conception.  To  begin  with,  it  ap- 
plies only  to  sense-objects,  while  the  notion  of  a  nature  ap- 
plies to  all  being.  In  the  next  place,  sense-qualities  never 
reveal  what  a  thing  is,  but  only  how  it  affects  us ;  and  now 
we  know  that  sense-qualities  are  purely  phenomenal,  and 
have  no  likeness  to  anything  in  the  thing.  There  is  nei- 
ther hardness  in  the  hard,  nor  sweetness  in  the  sweet ;  but 
certain  things,  by  their  action  on  us,  produce  in  us  the  sen- 
sations of  hardness  or  sweetness.  Again,  things  are  in 
manifold  interaction  with  one  another;  and  this  interac- 
tion, also,  is  an  expression  of  their  nature.  This  fact  ren- 
ders it  strictly  impossible  to  find  the  nature  of  things  in 
their  sense-qualities,  or  to  tell  what  things  are  by  enumerat- 
ing their  sense-qualities.  Things  have  much  more  to  do 
than  to  appear  to  us.  Moreover,  even  crude  common-sense 
finds  reason  in  experience  for  changing  its  views.  The 
same  thing  is  found  to  have  different  sense-qualities.  The 
vinegar,  which  is  sour,  is  also  colored,  fluid,  heavy,  etc. 
But  these  qualities  are  incommensurable  among  themselves ; 
so  that,  if  one  is  supposed  to  reveal  the  nature,  the  others 
do  not,  unless  we  suppose  that  a  thing  has  as  many  differ- 
ent natures  as  it  has  sense-qualities.  In  that  case,  a  thing 
with  various  qualities  would  not  be  a  unit,  but  a  complex 
of  things.  But  this  supposition  so  clearly  destroys  the  unity 
of  the  thing  that  it  has  never  been  held  by  common-sense. 
Thus  the  attempt  to  find  the  nature  of  a  thing  in  its  sense- 
qualities  shatters  on  its  inner  contradiction.  If  the  assump- 


62  METAPHYSICS. 

tion  of  a  thing  distinct  from  a  complex  of  phenomena  is  to 
be  maintained,  the  nature  of  that  thing  cannot  be  found  in 
any  or  all  of  its  sense-qualities. 

This  fact  led  speculators,  at  a  very  early  date,  to  adopt 
another  view,  according  to  which  the  thing  retreats  behind 
the  qualities,  as  their  support,  and  the  qualities  appear  as 
states  of  the  thing.  The  essence  is  no  longer  revealed  in 
the  qualities,  but  is  their  hidden  and  mysterious  ground. 
The  thing  is  no  longer  colored,  extended,  etc.,  but  is  the 
un reachable  and  unsearchable  essence  which  appears  as 
such.  Thus  we  are  on  the  highway  to  agnosticism  and 
scepticism.  The  thing  in  itself  has  retreated  from  sight, 
and  reports  its  existence  in  manifestations  which,  after  all, 
do  not  manifest.  And,  since  the  manifestations  are  all  that 
is  immediately  given,  there  seems  to  be  no  longer  any  ground 
for  affirming  that  dark  essence  which  can  never  be  reached. 
This  notion  of  a  thing  with  various  and  changing  states  is 
the  foundation  of  most  of  our  spontaneous  metaphysics,  and 
of  very  many  of  our  philosophical  puzzles.  Like  the  notion 
of  inactive  being  with  inherent  forces,  it  is  an  attempt  to 
solve  some  of  the  most  important  problems  of  metaphysics. 
The  value  of  the  solution  will  come  up  for  future  discussion. 
The  notion  is  of  interest,  as  showing  that  the  human  mind 
lias  recognized  the  problem,  and  has  attempted  a  solution. 

Two  views  l.avo  resulted  from  the  need  of  putting  being 
back  of  its  apparent  qualities,  instead  of  finding  it  in  them. 
The  first  is,  that  being,  in  itself,  is  without  quality  of  any 
sort;  the  second  is,  that  being  has  qualities,  but  what  they 
are  is  entirely  unknown.  The  first  view  is  our  old  friend, 
pure  being,  back  again.  Being  is  the  ground  and  support 
of  the  definite  qualities ;  but  in  itself,  as  the  unmanifested 
reality,  it  is  without  quality  altogether.  This  view  we  have 
sufficiently  discussed  in  the  previous  chapter,  when  speaking 
of  pure  being  and  of  inherence.  That  which  is  without 
quality  of  any  sort  can  found  and  support  nothing.  The 
formless  clay,  which  we  mould  into  form,  is  itself  a  perfectly 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS.  63 

definite  compound  of  definite  elements,  and  it  is  suscep- 
tible of  being  moulded  only  because  of  its  definite  and  pe- 
culiar properties.  The  formless  nebula,  which  condenses 
into  a  solar  system,  is  indefinite  only  in  seeming.  The  re- 
ality is  a  host  of  definite  elements,  with  definite  laws,  and 
in  definite  relations  of  interaction  with  one  another.  The 
chemical  elements  have  not,  indeed,  the  qualities  of  their 
compounds;  but  some  qualities  they  must  have  to  make 
the  compounds  possible.  Neither  oxygen  nor  hydrogen 
have  any  of  the  properties  of  water,  but  they  must  have 
fixed  properties  of  their  own  in  order  to  produce  water. 

The  second  view  has  been  more  definitely  formulated  by 
Herbart  than  by  any  other  philosopher;  but  the  majority 
of  agnostics  would  accept  it  in  one  form  or  another.  Her- 
bart held  that  the  nature  of  being  is  unknown,  but  that, 
whatever  it  may  be,  it  falls  under  the  notion  of  quality. 
There  is  some  simple  quality,  x,  which,  if  we  could  only 
reach  it,  would  fully  and  truly  express  the  nature  of  the 
thing.  In  our  sense-experience  we  never  press  through  to 
the  realities  of  things.  Our  experience  is  of  compounds 
and  their  qualities ;  but  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  realities 
themselves  have  qualities  which  found  those  of  the  com- 
pounds. Herbart  escaped  the  difficulties  involved  in  the 
plurality  and  incommensurability  of  sense-qualities  by  view- 
ing things  as  they  appear,  as  only  complexes  of  phenomena, 
and  by  denying  plurality  of  qualities  to  the  real.  These 
conclusions  he  reached  by  a  very  ingenious,  but  highly  arti- 
ficial and  unsatisfactory,  theory  of  knowing,  in  which  he 
constantly  confounds  the  independent  something  in  sensa- 
tion with  absolute  being.  In  his  theory,  every  real  thing 
is  simple,  and  its  true  nature  is  expressed  in  some  simple 
quality.  This  quality  is  not  an  effect,  like  sense-qualities, 
but  reveals  the  essence  of  the  thing.  How  this  can  be,  we 
may  understand  from  the  Cartesian  doctrine  of  attributes. 
According  to  Descartes,  the  attribute  expresses  the  essence, 
and  tells  what  the  thing  is  in  itself,  and  apart  from  all  else. 


64:  METAPHYSICS. 

So  the  universal  attribute  of  matter,  and  hence  its  univer- 
sal essence,  is  extension.  The  essence  of  mind  is  thought. 
Each  of  these  attributes  tells,  not  what  its  subject  does,  but 
what  it  absolutely  is.  Of  course,  Herbart  did  not  accept 
these  results,  but  he  held  to  the  notion  that  some  unknown 
quality  exists,  which  expresses  the  nature  of  its  subject  as 
completely  as  Descartes  thought  that  extension  expresses 
the  essence  of  matter. 

But,  to  make  this  doctrine  clear,  the  meaning  of  quality 
must  be  explained.  If,  by  quality,  only  kind  be  meant,  the 
statement  that  the  nature  of  everything  falls  under  the  no- 
tion of  quality  is  a  pure  tautology,  for  quality  is  taken  to 
mean  nature.  The  word  is  often  used  in  this  sense.  When 
we  say  that  all  being  must  have  some  quality,  we  mean  only 
that  all  being  must  have  some  definite  nature,  or  be  of  some 
definite  kind.  If  this  were  all  Herbart  meant  by  quality,  it 
was  not  necessary  to  insist  upon  it,  and  he  might  have  con- 
fined himself  to  affirming  the  simplicity  of  being.  /But  qual- 
ities fall  into  two  classes,  those  which  are  discerned  in  intu- 
ition, and  those  which  are  reached  by  reasoning  and  com- 
parison. The  former  class  comprise  adjectives  and  the  ab- 
stract nouns  founded  upon  them;  and  it  is  this  class  from 
which  the  notion  of  quality  is  originally  obtained.  There 
is,  too,  a  sense  of  reality  in  an  intuition  which  no  amount 
of  reasoning  can  ever  produce ;  and  there  is,  also,  an  appa- 
rent entrance  into  reality  when  it  is  revealed  in  our  senses 
which  we  never  enjoy  in  thinking.  Hence,  when  we  allow 
that  our  senses  cannot  attain  to  the  true  nature  of  reality, 
we  still  cherish  the  hope  that  there  may  be  a  supersensible 
intuition  possible  to  other  beings,  and  perhaps  to  ourselves 
in  some  other  life,  which  shall  reveal  things  as  they  are.  In 
our  experience  of  color,  fragrance,  and  harmony,  we  enter 
into  their  inmost  nature,  and  are  conscious  that  there  is  no 
back- lying  color  or  tone  "  in  itself  "  which  refuses  to  come 
into  knowledge.  It  never  occurs  to  us  to  think  of  the  color 
we  perceive  as  the  hiding  of  another  color  which  remains 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS.  65 

forever  invisible.  Sucli  spectres  haunt  thought,  but  not  in- 
tuition. And  so,  whenever  we  conceive  of  a  state  in  which 
we  shall  know  things  as  they  are,  we  always  retain  this  feat- 
ure of  intuition  in  opposition  to  reflection.  Qualities,  then, 
may  express  some  possible  intuition,  or  they  may  express  a 
complex  of  relations.  Plerbart  seems  to  have  understood 
them  in  the  former  sense,  for  in  the  latter  they  are  incom- 
patible with  the  basal  conceptions  of  his  system.  He  views 
his  elemental  beings  as  simple  and  unrelated.  Each  one 
has  a  simple  and  self-centred  existence,  and  hence  cannot 
have  qualities  implying  relation  and  complexity.  Our  senses 
do  not  reveal  the  true  nature  of  things,  but  only  the  effect 
upon  us.  "We  say  the  thing  is  hot  or  cold,  sweet  or  bitter,, 
black  or  white,  etc.,  but  none  of  these  things  express  more 
than  subjective  effects,  which  are  referred  to  some  objective 
cause.  But  there  is  some  unknown  sense  which,  if  we  had 
it,  would  reveal  the  thing  as  it  is  in  itself.  In  that  case,  the 
nature  would  be  revealed  in  intuition,  and  not  in  reflection. 
But,  however  this  may  be,  neither  adjectives  nor  abstract 
nouns  are  capable  of  expressing  the  true  nature  of  things. 
We  have  already  pointed  out  that  changeless  things  will  not 
account  for  phenomena ;  and  qualities,  in  this  sense,  are  es- 
sentially changeless.  They  may  come  and  go,  but  their 
content  is  invariable.  Eed  may  give  place  to  black,  but 
red  cannot  change  to  black.  We  say  that  things  change 
their  color,  but  never  that  one  color  becomes  another. 
Common-sense,  therefore,  has  always  put  change  in  things, 
and  never  in  qualities.  The  latter  never  change,  but  are 
exchanged.  As  Plato  taught,  things  may  glide  from  the 
realm  of  one  idea  to  that  of  another,  but  the  ideas  them- 
selves are  fixed  in  their  contents  and  mutual  relations. 
Thus  they  constitute  a  realm  apart  from  all  change,  and  in 
this  realm  alone  could  Plato  find  the  fixedness  which  is  de- 
manded by  knowledge.  It  was  this  constancy  of  the  ideas 
with  which  he  refuted  the  Sophists,  who  sought  to  draw  all 
things  and  truths  into  perpetual  flow.  If,  now,  we  are  to 
5 


66  METAPHYSICS. 

view  the  nature  of  things  as  expressed  by  a  quality  of  the 
kind  in  question,  we  must  bring  the  thing  under  this  notion 
of  simplicity  and  unchangeability,  and  thereby  we  should 
make  it  incapable  of  explaining  change,  and  hence  inade- 
quate to  the  demands  upon  it.  We  should  fall  back  into 
the  Eleatic  doctrine,  which  excludes  all  change  from  being, 
or  we  should  have  to  affirm  a  doctrine  of  absolute  and 
groundless  becoming,  and  deny  the  existence  of  things  alto- 
gether. Both  of  these  views  will  be  dwelt  upon  in  the  next 
chapter.  Here  we  point  out  that  no  theory  which  admits 
the  reality  both  of  things  and  of  change  can  view  any  sim- 
ple quality  as  expressing  the  nature  of  a  thing. 

This  fact  deserves  further  consideration.  In  a  perfectly 
changeless  universe,  we  might  think  that  in  some  change- 
less quality  we  discern  the  true  nature  of  things.  Even 
now,  when  some  quality  is  always  present,  as  the  so-called 
primary  qualities  of  matter,  we  are  apt  to  view  that  quality 
as  expressing  the  essence.  But  in  a  changing  world  things 
have  a  past  and  a  future,  as  well  as  a  present ;  and  these, 
also,  must  be  expressions  of  the  nature.  Yet  a  present  qual- 
ity, at  best,  only  expresses  what  a  thing  now  is,  and  not 
what  it  has  been  or  will  be.  Again,  in  a  dynamic  system, 
the  essential  thing  is  activity,  and  the  law  of  this  activity, 
also,  must  be  taken  into  account.  Even  the  uncritical  think- 
ing of  daily  life  recognizes  that  the  same  thing  may  mani- 
fest the  most  different  properties  at  different  times,  yet  with- 
out losing  its  identity ;  and  that  very  different  things  may, 
at  times,  be  indistinguishable  by  the  senses,  yet  without  any 
approach  to  identity  of  nature.  It  may  be  that  no  two 
things  in  the  universe  are  alike  in  all  respects,  and  that  the 
apparent  likeness,  even  of  the  chemical  elements  of  the 
same  class,  is  but  a  parallelism  within  the  limits  of  obser- 
vation of  essentially  different  things.  The  attempt  to  tell 
what  a  thing  is  by  its  present  qualities  would  confound  such 
cases.  It  may  be  that  common-sense  is  mistaken  in  assum- 
ing identity  under  different  forms,  but  the  same  common- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS.  67 

sense  which  affirms  the  notion  of  quality  also  affirms  the 
identity.  We  must,  therefore,  try  to  reconcile  common- 
sense  with  itself,  before  declaring  it  mistaken.  But  if  this 
identity  through  change  is  to  be  maintained,  we  must,  in 
determining  the  nature  of  a  thing,  take  into  account  what 
it  has  been  and  what  it  will  be ;  just  as,  in  an  equation  of 
a  curve,  we  must  know  the  relations  of  the  co-ordinates 
not  merely  for  one  point,  but  for  all  points.  Any  formula 
which  fails  to  give  this  universal  relation  is  not  the  true 
equation. 

If,  then,  some  quality  were  present  throughout  the  thing's 
history,  it  could  not  be  identified  with  the  nature  of  the 
thing,  for  the  nature  must  account  for  the  changing,  as  well 
as  the  changeless,  qualities.  Hence,  if  we  should  view  ex- 
tension as  an  essential  quality  of  matter,  we  could  not  re- 
gard it  as  expressing  the  nature  of  the  material  elements; 
for  they,  if  real,  have  many  other  qualities,  which  must  also 
be  founded  in  the  nature;  and,  besides,  extension  is  an 
effect,  and  not  a  passive  quality.  In  fact,  the  view  we  are 
combating  belongs  to  the  pre-speculative  period  of  think- 
ing, when  being  was  viewed  as  inactive  and  changeless. 
Although  it  was  recognized  that  sense-qualities  cannot  re- 
veal the  essential  nature  of  the  thing,  still  it  was  conceiva- 
ble that  some  occult  quality  might  do  so.  But,  as  soon  as 
being  was  seen  to  be  essentially  active  and  changing,  this 
view  became  untenable.  On  these  two  accounts,  therefore 
— (1)  the  unchangeability  of  qualities,  and  (2)  the  necessary 
changeability  of  things — we  deny  that  any  simple  quality  or 
combination  of  qualities  can  ever  represent  the  nature  of  a 
thing.  As  long  as  we  remain  in  the  realm  of  qualities,  we 
can  only  define  the  thing  as  that  which  has  certain  qualities 
under  certain  circumstances,  and  certain  other  qualities  un- 
der certain  other  circumstances. 

/s 

The  outcome  of  the  previous  argument  is,  that  no  intui- 
tion or  action  of  the  receptivity  can  reveal  the  nature  of  a 


68  METAPHYSICS. 

thing.  This  nature  must  forever  remain  supersensible,  and 
its  determination  must  always  be  a  problem  of  reason,  not 
of  sense.  Hence  we  must  give  up  all  attempts  to  grasp  the 
nature  of  reality  by  asking  how  it  looks.  The  nature  can 
never  be  expressed  by  a  quality,  but  only  by  a  rule  or  law 
according  to  which  the  thing  acts  and  changes.  And  this 
conception,  in  some  of  its  aspects,  is  entirely  familiar  to  our 
daily  thinking,  "When  water  appears  now  as  ice  and  now 
as  vapor,  common-sense  never  doubts  that  there  is  some 
principle  which  determines  the  kind  and  sequence  of  these 
states.  Or,  when  an  egg,  under  the  appropriate  circum- 
stances, develops  through  various  stages  into  the  typical 
form,  we  say  that  there  is  a  law  which  determines  the  form 
and  sequence  of  this  development ;  and  we  should  unhesi- 
tatingly view  the  nature  of  the  bird,  not  as  the  external 
product,  but  as  the  law  by  which  the  development  was  or- 
dered so  as  to  reach  the  product.  Or,  when  two  or  n>ore 
chemical  elements  enter  into  various  chemical  combinations, 
and  manifest  particular  properties  in  each,  we  say  that  the 
nature  of  the  elements  determines  the  result.  Again,  when 
the  soul  runs  through  various  stages,  and  manifests  various 
forms  of  action,  we  say  that  the  nature  of  the  soul  deter- 
mines the  form  and  sequence  of  these  stages.  Thoughts, 
feelings,  and  volitions  are  not  lawless  and  unrelated,  but 
their  existence  and  their  inter-relations  are  determined  by 
some  one  principle,  which  we  call  the  nature  of  the  soul. 
]'  tVe  utter,  then,  no  strange  thought,  but  one  in  perfect  ac- 
cord with  daily  thinking,  when  we  define  the  nature  of  a 
thing  as  that  law  or  principle  which  determines  the  form 
and  character  of  its  activity.  The  objection  which  com- 
mon-sense has  to  making  this  definition  universal  is  based 
upon  the  false  notion  that  being  may  be  inactive  and  change- 
less as  well  as  active  and  changing.  But  when  it  is  seen 
that  all  being  is  essentially  active,  the  objection  disappears. 
But  it  will  be  asked,  What  better  off  are  we  than  before  ? 
If,  then,  we  had  to  define  a  thing  as  that  which  has  certain 


THE  NATURE  OP  THINGS.  59 

properties,  now  we  have  to  define  it  as  that  which  has  a  cer- 
tain law,  and  thought  is  in  no  way  advanced.  So  far  as  in- 
sight into  creation  is  concerned,  this  is  true ;  but  it  is  not 
true  for  thought.  The  theory  which  finds  the  essence  of  a 
thing  in  some  simple  quality  makes  no  provision  for  activity 
and  change ;  or,  if  it  provides  for  change,  it  makes  no  pro- 
vision for  identity.  That  thing  whose  nature  is  expressed 
now  by  one  quality,  and  now  by  another  and  incommensu- 
rable one,  has  no  identity  with  itself.  The  theory  which 
finds  the  essence  of  a  thing  in  a  law  which  governs  both  its 
coexistent  and  its  sequent  manifestations  does  make  provi- 
sion for  activity,  and,  in  some  sense,  for  identity. 

But  how,  it  will  be  further  asked,  can  a  law  be  the  nature 
of  a  thing?  A  law  is  only  a  formula  in  thought,  while  a 
thing  is  a  reality.  A  quality  does,  at  least,  represent  the 
way  in  which  a  thing  appears,  or  the  way  in  which  it  affects 
us.  It  stands,  therefore,  closer  to  the  true  nature  of  the 
thing  than  a  law,  which  is  purely  a  mental  product.  If, 
then,  we  cannot  regard  a  quality  as  expressing  the  nature  of 
a  thing,  still  less  can  we  find  in  a  law  the  essence  which  we 
seek.  A  law  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  a  thing.  This  objec- 
tion would  have  validity  against  the  absolute  idealists  of  the 
later  German  philosophy,  who  identified  thought  with  thing. 
If  it  were  possible  for  us  to  get  a  perfect  formula  for  the 
nature  of  anything,  that  formula  would  not  be  the  nature 
as  real,  but  the  nature  as  conceived.  The  ineffable  differ- 
ence between  a  thought  and  a  thing  would  remain  an  im- 
passable gulf  for  human  thought.  But  this  is  only  our  an- 
cient admission  that  we  cannot  make  reality,  nor  tell  how  it 
is  made.  Hence,  whatever  the  nature  of  reality  may  be, 
whether  quality  or  law,  it  can  appear  in  our  minds  only  as 
conceived,  and  never  as  the  reality  itself.  And  since  we 
can  only  think  about  things,  not  make  them,  the  only  possi- 
ble question  is,  Must  we  think  of  this  nature  under  the  form 
of  a  quality,  or  as  a  law  or  rule  of  action  ?  The  attempt  to 
think  of  it  as  a  quality  fails,  and  we  decide  that  the  form  of 


70  METAPHYSICS. 

our  thought  must  be  that  of  a  law  of  activity.  This  is  the 
only  conception  which  provides  for  change  and  action.  The 
further  question,  how  a  law  can  be  set  in  reality  so  that, 
from  being  a  thought,  it  becomes  a  thing,  involves  the  mys- 
tery of  creation,  or  of  absolute  being.  "We  do  not  pretend 
to  know  how  being  is  made.  We  only  know  that  it  is  not 
made  by  taking  an  idea  and  stuffing  it  with  a  formless  real- 
ity. But  when  being  is  made,  it  is  simply  a  concrete  for- 
mula of  action.  Care,  however,  must  be  taken  not  to  over- 
look the  significance  of  the  term  concrete,  for  it  contains 
that  mystery  of  reality  which  no  thought  can  ever  define. 

A  single  misunderstanding  must  be  warded  off.     The 
word  nature  is  often  used  as  the  universal  in  a  class.     Thus 
we  speak  of  human  nature,  and  mean  those  forms  of  activ- 
ity which  are  common  to  all  men.     In  this  sense,  we  speak 
of  all  men  as  having  a  common  nature,  and  we  view  the 
individual  as  an  illustration,  or  specimen,  of  the  universal. 
Again,  we  may  take  the  equation  of  the  ellipse,  and  by  giv- 
ing the  arbitrary  constants  different  values,  we  may  reach  a 
series  of  ellipses,  all  of  which  have  the  common  nature  of 
the  ellipse.     But,  in  this  sense,  no  actual  ellipse  is  explained 
by  its  nature,  for  in  every  case  there  is  an  arbitrary  factor 
introduced.     The  nature  merely  serves  to  mark  the  ellipse 
as  a  member  of  a  class,  and  not  to  explain  its  individual  pe- 
culiarities, whereby  it  is  marked  off  not  only  from  other 
classes  of  figures,  but  also  from  all  other  figures  of  the  same 
class.     But,  in  the  metaphysical  sense,  the  nature  of  a  thin£~~\ 
is  that  law  of  activity  whereby  it  is  not  merely  a  member    » 
of  a  class,  but  also,  and  primarily,  itself  in  distinction  from 
all  other  things.     That,  in  addition  to  being  what  it  is,  it  is 
also  a  member  of  a  class,  is  a  secondary  fact.     Everything      'yP  '] 
has,  primarily,  the  duty  of  being  itself.     When,  then,  we~~\ 
speak  of  the  nature  of  a  thing  under  the  form  of  a  law,  we 
regard  this  law  as  entirely  specific  and  individual,  and  not  as     \ 
universal.     The  nature  has  the  form  of  a  law,  but  applies 
only  to  the  single  case.     In  this  respect  it  is  like  a  mathe- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS.  71 

matical  formula,  in  which  the  general  values  have  been  re- 
placed by  specific  ones.  Thereby  the  formula  becomes  real, 
and  loses  its  universality.  It  applies  only  to  a  single  and 
specific  case. 

Since  the  earliest  times,  approximations  to  this  view  have 
appeared  in  speculation.  According  to  Plato,  the  essence, 
or  true  nature,  of  a  thing,  is  the  idea  realized  in  it.  The 
formless  matter  has  no  essence,  but  acquires  it  by  union 
with  the  idea.  This  view  is  inadequate  as  implying  the  no- 
tion of  pure  being.  It  does  not  make  the  thing  all  idea, 
but  allows  it  to  consist  of  matter  and  idea.  These  mutually 
exclusive  elements  are  brought  together  only  by  an  act  of 
philosophical  violence.  Again,  with  Plato,  the  idea  was 
changeless,  and,  as  such,  could  not  form  the  nature  of  a 
changing  thing.  If,  then,  we  should  adopt  Plato's  view  of 
the  kingdom  of  changeless  ideas,  the  nature  of  the  thing 
would  not  be  the  idea,  but  that  law  of  change  which  brings 
it  into  the  realm  now  of  one  idea,  and  now  of  another.  In 
the  case  of  motion  variable  in  velocity  and  direction,  the 
nature  of  the  motion  does  not  consist  in  any  of  the  definite 
velocities  and  directions  which  it  has  at  given  moments, 
but  in  the  law  which  determines  the  velocity  and  direction 
which  it  shall  have  at  any  moment  whatever.  In  the  Pla- 
tonic sense,  therefore,  the  idea  cannot  be  viewed  as  express- 
ing the  nature  of  a  thing.  A  similar  criticism  applies  to 
the  theory  that  thought  is  the  essence  of  being  when  thought 
is  identified  with  the  notion.  First,  thought  is  not  the  es- 
sence of  being,  but,  at  best,  only  expresses  it.  Thus,  if  we 
should  hold,  with  Descartes,  that  extension  is  the  essence 
of  matter,  it  would  not  be  extension  as  thought,  but  as 
real.  Our  thought  might  grasp  the  nature  perfectly,  but 
it  could  never  transcend  the  indefinable  difference  between 
thought  and  thing.  Again,  the  notion  cannot  express  the 
nature  of  a  thing.  Like  the  idea,  it  is  too  rigid  to  admit  of 
movement.  It  would  set  things  apart  in  a  fixed  self-iden- 
tity, and  bring  the  universe  to  a  stand-still. 


72  METAPHYSICS. 

C-  Aristotle  advanced  upon  Plato.  He  admits  development 
in  things,  and  defines  their  nature  or  essence  to  be  their 
purpose  or  end.  The  nature  of  a  thing  is  the  "  what-was- 
to-be."  This  conception,  also,  is  quite  familiar,  to  daily  life. 
The  common  mode  of  expressing  what  any  invention  is,  is 
to  tell  what  it  is  for.  Inventions  take  their  names  from  the 
end  they  serve.  So,  also,  works  of  art  and  literature  are 
classified  according  to  their  purpose.  We  estimate  the  exe- 
cution, in  each  case,  by  the  skill  with  which  the  purpose  has 
been  reached,  but  we  find  the  essential  nature  of  the  work 
in  the  purpose  itself.  From  adopting  this  conception  of 
nature  in  general,  many  philosophers  have  been  led  to  say 
that  the  real  thing  is  always  false,  because  it  never  ade- 
quately represents  the  idea.  The  idea  only  is  the  truth  of 
the  thing,  and  the  reality  is  a  more  or  less  indifferent  attempt 
to  reach  it.  This  thought  finds  frequent  expression  in 
speaking  of  human  nature.  We  often  hear  it  said  that 
man's  true  nature  is  not  what  he  is,  but  the  moral  ideal 
which  he  is  to  realize.  Sometimes  a  verbal  squabble  re- 
sults from  this  use  of  the  word,  and  it  is  debated  with 
great  warmth  and  vehemence  whether  sin  or  righteousness 
be  natural  to  man.  The  many  meanings  of  the  word  allow 
each  side  to  win.  The  scholastics,  also,  sought  to  define  the 
nature  of  a  thing  by  enumerating  its  possibilities  or  poten- 
tialities. The  nature  of  a  thing  is  the  sum  of  its  potentiali- 
ties. There  is  something  attractive  in  these  views,  espe- 
cially in  that  of  Aristotle.  The  theist  cannot  but  be  at- 
tracted by  the  doctrine  that  the  purpose,  or  ideal  concep- 
tion, of  a  thing,  is  its  true  nature.  But,  while  such  views 
have  a  rhetorical  and  practical  value,  they  are  metaphv'si- 
cally  insufficient.  The  difficulty  with  them  all  is  that,  in  or- 
der to  realize  any  of  these  future  ends  or  possibilities,  the 
thing  must  be  definite,  and  have  a  definite  law  in  advance. 
The  indefinite  is  potential  of  nothing,  and  has  no  possibili- 
ties. Hence,  the  results  express  only  outcomes  of  the  nat- 
ure, and  not  the  nature  itself.  If,  then,  we  regard  the  com- 


THE   NATURE  OF  THINGS.  73 

plete  outcome  as  expressing  the  nature  of  a  thing,  it  is  not 
because  it  is  the  outcome,  but  because  it  is  now  in  the  thing 
as  its  essential  law.  The  only  sense  in  which  a  purpose  can 
express  the  nature  of  a  thing  is,  that  a  purpose  may,  as  in 
inventions,  be  the  norm  according  to  which  the  thing  is 
formed,  and  thus  it  becomes  the  determining  law  of  the 
thing  and  of  its  activity.  But  this  would,  in  any  case,  ap- 
ply only  to  the  finite,  and,  even  there,  it  would  apply  only 
on  the  assumption  that  the  finite  was  created  for  a  purpose. 
The  doctrine  which  finds  the  nature  in  the  potentialities  is 
especially  questionable,  because  potentiality  is  only  a  notion, 
and  has  nothing  corresponding  to  it  in  fact.  Apart  from 
thought,  the  real  is  all,  and  neither  the  possible  nor  the  nec- 
essary has  any  existence.  In  the  world  of  reality,  the  pos- 
sible and  the  actual  are  identical ;  and  when  the  possible  is 
not  actual,  it  is  not  possible.  We  are  able  to  conceive  of 
various  events  and  combinations  of  things  which,  because 
they  contain  no  contradiction,  we  call  possible ;  but  this 
conception  is  entirely  in  our  own  minds.  Again,  of  some 
process,  whose  conditions  are  not  fully  known,  we  say  that 
it  may  turn  out  this  way  or  that.  But  the  fact  itself  is  not 
in  the  potential  mood.  It  can  turn  out  in  only  one  way. 
The  potentiality  is  only  an  expression  of  our  ignorance. 
Facts  themselves  are  only  in  the  indicative  mood.  If  we 
should  conceive  of  the  primal  atoms  as  whirled  into  space 
by  some  primal  impulse,  we  should  likely  say  that  the  pos- 
sible combinations  were  infinite ;  but  a  moment's  reflection 
shows  that  there  was  only  one  possibility,  and  that  was  the 
actuality.  We  can  think  of  many  combinations;  but  all 
these,  though  possible  in  thought,  were  impossible  in  fact. 
Again,  when  the  conditions  of  an  event  are  all  fulfilled  ex- 
cept some  trifling  one,  which  lies  in  our  power,  we  are  apt 
to  call  that  event  very  possible.  But,  in  truth,  as  long  as 
the  conditions  are  unfulfilled,  the  event  is  impossible ;  and, 
when  they  are  fulfilled,  the  event  is  not  possible,  but  actual. 
The  fact  in  all  such  cases  is  that,  if  some  condition  were 


74  METAPHYSICS. 

fulfilled,  the  event  called  possible  would  become  real ;  but, 
until  then,  the  event  is  strictly  impossible.  Metaphysical- 
ly, therefore,  possibility  and  potentiality  are  empty  words ; 
and,  at  best,  they  are  only  figures  of  speech  to  express  what 
would  happen  if  certain  conditions  were  fulfilled.  They 
are  never  to  be  thought  of  as  coiled  up  in  the  thing,  wait- 
ing for  an  unfolding,  because  they  are  nothing  until  real- 
ized. 

But  if  we  are  not  to  learn  the  nature  of  a  thing  from  its 
outcome,  how  shall  we  know  it  ?  If  the  nature  of  a  thing 
be  the  law  of  its  activity,  we  must  learn  what  it  is  by  ob- 
serving what  it  does.  This  is,  no  doubt,  true,  but  there  is 
a  difference  between  learning  what  a  thing  is  from  its  out- 
come and  identifying  it  with  the  outcome.  Although  the 
law  of  the  activity  be  learned  from  the  activity,  yet  it  is,  in 
thought,  separate  from  the  activity.  It  is  just  that  princi- 
ple which  demands  that  the  activity  shall  have  its  actual 
form,  and,  thus,  that  the  thing  shall  be  what  it  is.  Observa- 
tion gives  us  form  and  sequence  only ;  the  nature  is  viewed 
as  the  principle  which  determines  both.  The  form  of  our 
thought  is  that  of  a  law ;  the  content  of  this  law  must  al- 
ways be  learned  from  the  outcome.  Hence,  while  we  al- 
ways think  of  a  nature  under  the  form  of  a  law,  we  can  de- 
scribe the  nature  only  by  detailing  its  manifestations.  In 
this  sense,  the  scholastic  doctrine  is  true.  The  content  of 
any  given  nature  is  given  in  its  outcome ;  and  we  can  tell 
what  a  thing  is  only  by  observing  what  it  does. 

It  follows,  from  the  preceding  paragraph,  that  our  defini- 
tion of  nature  is  purely  formal.  It  tells  how  we  shall  think, 
but  never  what  we  shall  think.  To  determine  what  the 
nature  of  any  given  thing  may  be,  we  must  fall  back  upon 
observation ;  and,  as  this  can  never  be  exhaustive,  we  can 
never  be  sure  that  we  have  an  exhaustive  knowledge  of 
anything.  The  manifestations  of  finite  things  depend,  also, 
upon  their  relations  to  other  things,  and  it  is  not  possible  to 
tell  what  new  properties  they  might  manifest  in  new  rela- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS.  75 

tions.  It  is  a  common  suggestion,  that  the  nature  of  the 
soul  is  only  faintly  revealed  in  consciousness  as  yet,  and 
that,  therefore,  we  are  the  profoundest  mystery  to  ourselves. 
It  is  often  suggested,  likewise,  that  even  the  physical  ele- 
ments may  have  many  possibilities  which  are  unsuspected. 
To  overcome  this  uncertainty,  it  would  be  necessary  to  know 
the  purpose  for  which  the  thing  exists.  If  this  were  possi- 
ble, we  should  have  an  exhaustive  knowledge  of  the  thing, 
and  we  should  know  that  it  would  never  pass  beyond  the 
implications  of  the  purpose.  But  we  have  no  such  knowl- 
edge. In  our  experience,  everything  seems  confined  to  a 
limited  round  of  manifestation.  Things  move  in  closed 
curves,  and  not  in  open  ones.  But  this  may  be  due  to  the 
relative  constancy  and  equilibrium  of  the  conditions  in  which 
they  exist.  All  things  may  be  framed  for  some  fixed  alti- 
tude, and  they  may  be  comprised  in  an  upward  movement. 
Leibnitz  conceived  of  all  finite  reality  as  called  to  endless 
progressive  development.  Of  course,  this  applies  to  the 
physical  elements  only  on  the  supposition  of  their  reality. 
But  we  have  not  yet  sufficiently  determined  the  notion  of 
being  to  say  whether  the  physical  elements  fill  out  the  no- 
tion of  being.  If  they  do,  we  must  allow  the  possibility 
mentioned. 

Without  doubt  the  reader  remains  unsatisfied,  and  urges 
that  the  being  itself  is  deeper  than  the  law ;  that  it  has  the 
law,  follows  the  law,  realizes  the  law,  etc.  The  inventions 
to  which  we  have  referred  are  more  than  their  law,  and 
houses  are  more  than  their  plan.  In  each  case  there  is 
needed  a  stuff,  a  raw  material,  which  is  to  receive  the  law, 
and  realize  it.  But  this  is  only  the  old  error,  and  it  can 
be  answered  only  by  repeating  what  we  have  said  again 
and  again.  This  notion  has  a  certain  warrant  in  our  own 
experience  with  the  outer  world.  We  are  not  creators,  but 
only  users  of  given  material.  The  notion  has  a  further  ap- 
plication to  all  compounds.  These,  also,  presuppose  an  an- 
tecedent existence,  from  which  they  are  compounded.  But 


76  METAPHYSICS. 

when  we  apply  the  theory  to  a  proper  reality  or  agent,  we 
only  fall  back  into  the  nothingness  of  pure  being.  Being 
could  neither  have,  nor  follow,  nor  realize  a  law,  if  the  law 
were  not  essential  to  the  being,  or  if  the  being  were  other 
than  the  realized  law.  A  double  temptation  besets  us  here. 
On  the  one  hand,  we  are  tempted  to  make  the  being  deeper 
than  the  law,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  tempted  to 
make  the  law  deeper  than  the  being.  In  both  cases,  we 
mistake  the  separations  of  thought  and  language  for  separa- 
tions in  the  thing.  The  nature  is  not  in  the  thing,  and  the 
thing  does  not  have  the  nature.  The  thing  itself  is  all; 
and,  as  it  is  not  compounded  of  being  and  power,  no  more 
is  it  compounded  of  being  and  nature.  The  fact  is  the  uni- 
tary thing,  and  this  thing  acts  in  certain  definite  ways. 
From  the  fact  of  activity  we  form  the  notion  of  power. 
From  the  form  and  sequence  of  the  activity  we  form  a  rule, 
which  we  call  the  law  of  its  action.  But,  in  strictness,  this 
law  does  not  found  the  definiteness ;  it  only  expresses  it  for 
our  thought.  It  does  not  even  rule  the  thing ;  but  the  thing 
acts  according  to  it.  "We  have  hitherto  spoken  of  the  nature 
as  the  principle  which  determines  the  form  and  sequence  of 
a  thing's  activities ;  but  even  this  expression  is  inexact. 
This  form  and  sequence  are  first  facts,  and  not  second.  They 
found  law,  and  are  not  founded  in  it.  The  definite  thing 
is  the  only  reality ;  and  the  distinction  of  thing  and  law  is 
only  in  our  thought.  Being  without  law  is  nothing;  and 
law  without  being  is,  also,  nothing.  Thus  we  come  around 
again  to  our  early  ..position,  that  being  is  a  concrete  order 
of  action.  To  know  this  order  is  to  know  the  thing  in  itself,  ' 
or  in  its  inmost  essence.  The  only  insoluble  question  in 
such  a  case  is,  how  the  formula  can  be  set  in  reality ;  but 
the  question  how  being  is  made  does  not  belong  to  philoso- 
phy. This  contents  itself  with  the  humbler  question,  how 
we  shall  think  about  being  after  it  is  made.  Our  conclu- 
sion thus  far  is,  that  a  thing  must  be  viewed  as  a  concrete 
and  definite  principle  of  action. 


CHANGE  AND   BECOMING.  77 


CHAPTER  III. 

CHANGE  AND  BECOMING. 

THE  notion  of  being  has  already  undergone  manifold 
transformations  at  our  hand,  and  the  eud  is  not  yet.  The 
most  prominent  factor  in  the  current  notion  of  a  thing  has 
not  yet  been  mentioned.  This  is  the  element  of  perma- 
nence. We  think  of  a  thing  as  active,  but  still  more  as 
abiding.  It  has  different  states,  but  is  always  equal  to,  and 
identical  with,  itself.  We  have  next  to  inquire  whether 
this  element  of  permanence  can  be  retained ;  and,  if  so, 
how.  It  may  turn  out  that  permanence  must  be  denied, 
and  being  reduced  to  process ;  or,  rather,  that  the  process 
alone  is  permanent.  This  result,  indeed,  is  foreshadowed 
in  the  conclusions  of  the  previous  chapters,  and  flows  di- 
rectly from  them. 

The  source  of  difficulty  on  this  point  is,  the  fact  of  change. 
Change  is  the  most  prominent  fact  of  experience ;  and,  since 
we  view  being  as  the  source  of  all  outgo  and  manifestation, 
we  must  provide  for  change  in  being.  Otherwise,  we  fall 
back  into  the  Eleatic  conception,  and  the  notion  appears  as 
inadequate.  No\v  the  admission  that  we  cannot  positively 
describe  how  a  thing  is  made  does  not  allow  us  to  form  a 
notion  of  things  which  shall  contain  an  inner  contradiction. 
The  assertion  of  a  mystery  in  things  can  never  warrant  us 
in  contradicting  ourselves.  Our  guiding  principle  through- 
out the  entire  discussion  is,  that  a  contradiction  in  a  notion 
proves  its  untenability.  Yet  a  manifest  contradiction  seems 
to  exist  in  the  common  notion  of  a  changing  thing.  This 


78  METAPHYSICS. 

assumes  not  merely  a  change,  as  that  A  should  vanish,  and 
B  take  its  place,  but  that  A  itself  changes,  and  yet  remains 
the  same.  The  former  conception  may  be  illustrated  by  a 
change  of  color.  In  this  case,  one  color  does  not  become 
another,  but  is  replaced  by  another.  The  blue  does  not 
change  to  black,  but  is  displaced  by  black.  So  with  every 
change  of  qualities:  they  are  exchanged,  but  do  not  them- 
selves change.  And  no  one  would  think  of  saying  that 
black  can  change  to  white,  and  still  less  would  one  think  of 
saying  that,  if  black  did  change  to  white,  it  would  still  re- 
main the  same  black.  If  one  quality  should  become  anoth- 
er, it  would  change  through  and  through ;  and  we  should 
all  regard  it  as  absurd  to  speak  of  it  as  remaining  the  same 
quality  after  the  change  as  before.  But  why  is  it  any  less 
absurd  to  speak  of  a  thing  as  changing,  and  yet  remaining 
the  same,  than  it  is  to  speak  thus  of  qualities?  The  latter 
we  never  do,  but  the  former  we  all  do.  Common-sense  has 
never  been  content  to  accept  the  doctrine  of  an  absolute  ex- 
change. This  view  would  deny  all  continuity  between  an- 
tecedent and  consequent,  and  would  shut  us  up  to  pure  phe- 
nominalism ;  in  which,  moreover,  the  phenomena  would  be 
phenomena  of  nothing.  But  the  common  notion  of  a  chang- 
ing, yet  identical,  thing  is  so  hostile  to  the  law  of  contradic- 
tion that  we  must  make  an  attempt  at  its  rectification.  Can 
change  and  identity  be  reconciled  ;  and,  if  so,  how  ?  This 
is  the  problem. 

But,  before  attacking  the  problem,  we  must  define  more 
carefully  the  meaning  of  change.  The  very  notion  is  said 
to  involve  a  contradiction ;  and,  if  this  be  so,  then,  before 
reconciling  it  to  other  notions,  we  must  reconcile  it  to  itself. 
Change,  in  the  abstract,  may  denote  any  and  every  change, 
including  the  most  lawless  and  chaotic  sequences,  continu- 
ous and  discontinuous.  In  this  sense,  change  would  be  sim- 
ply a  departure  from  the  present  order  in  any  direction 
whatever.  But  neither  science  nor  philosophy  understands 
by  change  a  lawless  and  groundless  sequence;  for  such  a 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING.  79 

conception  would  make  both  impossible.  Both  assume  a 
causal  continuity  between  the  successive  states  of  reality 
whereby  each  is  founded  in  its  predecessor,  and,  in  turn, 
founds  its  successor.  Both  alike  exclude  the  positivistic 
notion  of  antecedence  and  sequence  as  the  only  relation  be- 
tween past  and  future ;  for  this  view  would  reduce  every- 
thing to  an  absolute  and  groundless  becoming.  In  that  case, 
the  present  would  not  be  founded  in  the  past,  and  would 
not  found  the  future.  All  continuity  would  be  dissolved, 
and  every  phenomenon  would  be  a  groundless  and  opaque 
fact.  But  even  Heraclitus,  who  first  taught  that  all  things 
flow,  and  who  made  becoming  the  principle  of  existence, 
held  that  the  preceding  moments  in  the  flow  condition  the 
succeeding,  and  that  the  course  of  the  flow  is  subject  to  in- 
exorable necessity ;  something  as  we  might  say  that  the  laws 
of  mechanics  rule  the  ongoings  of  the  physical  universe. 
Fixity  in  the  flow,  marking  out  its  channel  and  determin- 
ing its  bounds,  was  to  him  as  prominent  a  principle  as  the 
flow  itself.  No  more  does  the  scientist  or  philosopher  re- 
gard change  as  groundless;  it  must  have  both  law  and 
ground.  Hence  it  is  not  a  change  of  anything  into  every- 
thing, but  the  direction  of  change  for  everything  is  fixed. 
For  physics  we  might  formulate  the  doctrine  of  change  as 
follows:  A  given  element,  A,  may,  under  the  proper  con- 
ditions, pass  into  A15  A2,  A3,  etc. ;  and,  by  reversing  the 
conditions,  we  may  pass  from  A3  back  to  A  again.  Like- 
wise another  element,  B,  may,  under  the  proper  conditions, 
run  through  the  series  Bp  B2,  B3,  etc.  C  may  pass  through 
the  series  Cj,  C2,  C3,  etc.  From  any  member  of  the  series, 
as  a  base,  we  can  pass  to  any  other,  by  properly  arranging 
the  conditions.  But,  throughout  this  process,  there  is  noth- 
ing lawless  and  groundless.  A  can  pass  into  A1  only  under 
some  definite  condition,  and  cannot  pass  into  anything  else 
under  that  condition.  Hence  change,  in  its  scientific  and 
philosophic  sense,  implies  causal  continuity  of  being,  and  is 
identical  with  becoming.  The  past  founded  the  present, 


80  METAPHYSICS.  ' 

and  the  present  founds  the  future,  but  everywhere  there 
are  ground  and  law.  We  have  now  to  inquire  whether  the 
notion  of  becoming  involves  contradictions.  Our  first  aim 
will  be  to  develop  the  doctrine  of  becoming ;  at  a  later  pe- 
riod we  shall  inquire  how  far  it  is  tenable.  ^ 

The  standing  objection  to  the  notion  of  change  is,  that  it 
violates  the  logical  law  of  identity,  because  change  assumes 
that  a  thing  can  both  be  and  not  be  at  the  same  time.  The 
Eleatic  Zeuo  labored  to  show  this  by  his  celebrated  para- 
doxes against  the  possibility  of  motion,  and  all  later  attempts 
have  been  but  repetitions  in  principle  of  what  he  said.  A 
first  objection  to  this  claim  is,  that  it  swells  out  the  logical 
law  of  identity  beyond  its  proper  meaning.  As  a  logical 
law,  it  demands  nothing  more  than  consistency  in  thinking ; 
and,  except  in  a  derived  sense,  it  has  no  ontological  signifi- 
cance whatever.  In  its  primitive  meaning,  it  merely  says 
that  every  object  of  thought  shall  have  a  definite  meaning, 
and  shall  not  be  confounded  with  anything  else.  In  itself, 
it  does  not  decide  whether  change  and  motion  are  possible 
thoughts,  but  only  that,  if  possible,  they  shall  be  kept  sep- 
arate from  all  other  possible  thoughts.  If  motion  be  con- 
ceived, it  must  be  as  motion,  and  not  as  rest.  If  change  be 
thought  of,  it  must  be  as  change.  If  the  absurd  and  contra- 
dictory are  dealt  with,  it  must  be  as  absurd  and  contradic- 
tory, and  not  as  rational  and  consistent.  When  the  law  is 
given  any  broader  meaning  than  this,  it  brings  thought  to  a 
standstill.  In  itself  it  is  only  the  negative  condition  of 
thinking,  and  leads  to  nothing,  without  some  positive  prin- 
ciple, as  the  Megarians  abundantly  showed.  But  if  we  al- 
low that  the  law  of  identity  really  contradicts  the  notion  of 
change,  it  is  plain  that  we  cannot  restrict  its  application  to 
change  in  being,  but  must  extend  it  to  thoughts  and  rela- 
tions also.  A  changing  relation  is  no  less  a  violation  of  the 
law  of  identity  than  a  changing  thing.  If,  then,  we  allow 
this  law  to  forbid  change  in  being,  it  must  forbid  all  change 
whatsoever,  and  reduce  the  universe  to  a  rigid,  stony  stare. 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING.  81 

This  was  the  position  of  the  Eleatics,  and  it  is  the  only  log- 
ical one  from  their  standpoint.  Strangely  enough,  none  of 
the  other  deniers  of  change  in  being  have  ventured  to  be 
equally  logical,  but,  while  denying  change  in  being,  have 
allowed  change  in  relations  without  the  least  suspicion  of 
the  inconsistency.  In  truth,  the  law  of  identity  can  be 
played  off  against  change  only  by  showing  that  it  contains 
distinct  and  irreducible  contradictions.  The  attempt  to 
show  this  we  have  next  to  consider. 

The  alleged  contradictions  in  the  notion  of  change  all  re- 
duce to  the  charge  that  it  implies  that  a  thing  can  both  be 
and  not  be  at  the  same  time,  or,  that  it  implies  the  union  of 
being  and  non-being  in  the  same  subject.  This  claim  rests 
upon  a  curious  play  on  the  word  being.  Being  may  mean 
the  active,  although  the  agent  in  acting  may  change  itself, 
or  pass  into  new  states.  This  is  the  sense  in  which  we  have 
used  it.  But  it  may  also  mean  an  enduring  and  changeless 
substance,  which  is  the  common  thought.  Now  if  we  should 
make  becoming  the  absolute  principle  of  existence,  we  should 
allow  the  reality  of  being  only  in  the  former  sense.  The 
members  of  the  series  A,  Av  A2,  A3,  etc.,  are  all  capable  of 
acting  and  of  being  acted  upon  while  they  last,  and  hence 
they  fill  out  the  notion  of  being  while  they  last.  Now  the 
objection  to  the  doctrine  of  becoming,  on  the  ground  that 
the  notion  is  contradictory,  rests  on  overlooking  this  fact. 
The  objector  assumes  that  being  can  only  signify  an  endur- 
ing and  changeless  substratum,  while  the  disciple  of  be- 
coming rejects  this  view  entirely.  We  have  a  fine  illustra- 
tion of  this  oversight  in  Zeno's  pretended  disproof  of  mo- 
tion. He  assumed  that  at  every  instant  the  flying  arrow 
must  be  in  a  definite  point,  and  hence  must  be  resting  in 
that  point.  But,  if  resting,  it  is  not  moving,  and  cannot 
move.  The  fallacy  here  is  palpable.  It  confounds  being 
in  a  point,  in  the  sense  of  resting  in  it,  with  being  in  a  point 
in  the  sense  of  passing  through  it.  But  only  that  rests  in  a 
point  which  remains  in  it  for  some  consecutive  instants. 
G 


82  METAPHYSICS. 

That  which  is  passing  through  a  point  is  not  resting  in  it. 
Hence,  to  rest  in  a  point  and  not  to  rest  in  it  do  not  form  a 
complete  disjunction.  The  third  possibility  remains  of  mo- 
tion through  the  point.  A  similar  oversight  occurs  in  the 
objection  to  change  in  general.  When  it  is  said  that  a  thing 
must  be  either  A  or  non-A,  it  does  not  exclude  the  third 
possibility,  that  A  is  becoming  non-A.  If  we  make  becom- 
ing the  absolute  principle,  nothing  ever  is,  in  the  sense  of  a 
fixed  existence,  but  is  constantly  becoming.  The  process 
alone  abides ;  its  phases  are  forever  coming  and  going.  The 
outcome  of  these  logical  objections  is,  simply,  that  neither 
motion  nor  change  can  be  defined  in  terms  of  anything  ex- 
cept itself,  or  deduced  from  anything  more  ultimate.  Zerio 
sought  to  construct  motion  from  a  series  of  successive  rest- 
ing positions,  and,  of  course,  failed  in  the  attempt.  Every 
definition  of  motion  and  change  either  contains  the  thing  to 
be  defined,  or  constructs  them  from  resting  and  change- 
less elements.  In  the  former  case,  we  have  a  tautology  ;  in 
the  latter,  a  contradiction. 

The  Heraclitic  conception  of  being  as  a  flowing  process 
may  be  illustrated  by  the  case  of  variable  motion.  In  this 
case,  the  moving  body  never  has  a  fixed  velocity  for  any 
two  consecutive  instants,  but  is  constantly  acquiring  one ; 
and  we  measure  its  velocity  at  any  instant  by  the  space  it 
would  pass  over  in  the  next  instant,  if  its  velocity  should 
instantly  become  uniform.  Now  at  any  indivisible  instant 
the  body  has  a  fixed  velocity,  but  this  fixed  velocity  is  in- 
cessantly changing  to  another.  "\Ve  might  say,  therefore, 
that  the  velocity  never  is,  but  perpetually  becomes.  Again, 
a  point  moving  in  a  curve  has  a  fixed  direction  for  only  one 
indivisible  instant — that  is,  for  no  time ;  but  we  define  its 
direction  to  be  that  of  the  tangent-line  to  the  curve  at  the 
point,  and  instant,  of  measurement.  For  purposes  of  calcu- 
lation, we  say  that  the  point  moves  in  a  straight  line  for  an 
infinitesimal  distance,  but,  in  truth,  the  point  never  moves 
in  a  straight  line.  Now,  in  this  case,  we  must  say  that  the 


CHANGE  AND   BECOMING.  83 

point  has  a  fixed  direction  only  for  an  indivisible  instant. 
Any  direction  which  it  may  have  at  any  instant  is  inces- 
santly giving  place  to  another.  We  may  say  here,  again, 
that  the  direction  of  the  point  never  is  in  the  sense  'of  en- 
during, but  is  forever  becoming.  This  illustrates  the  con- 
ception of  being  which  rules  in  the  system  of  becoming. 
Nothing  is  in  the  sense  of  enduring,  but  is  always  becom- 
ing. There  is  perpetual  coming  and  going;  and  as  soon 
as  a  thing  is,  it  passes,  and  gives  place  to  its  consequent. 
All  being  is  comprised  in  an  order  of  antecedence  and  se- 
quence ;  and  the  antecedent  must  yield  to  its  consequent, 
which,  in  turn,  becomes  antecedent,  and  likewise  passes. 
There  is  nothing  fixed  but  law,  which  determines  the  order 
and  character  of  the  flow.  Even  when  there  is  seeming  fix- 
edness, as  when  A  remains  A,  instead  of  passing  into  Aa, 
A2,  A3,  etc.,  thus  producing  the  appearance  of  change; — even 
this  is  not  to  be  viewed  as  an  exception  to  the  universal 
flow  of  being;  but  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  continuous  re- 
production of  A,  so  that  the  series  is  as  real  as  in  the  other 
cases ;  only  being  of  the  form  A,  A,  A,  there  is  no  appear- 
ance of  change.  The  A,  in  this  case,  is  like  a  wave  where 
two  currents  meet,  or  like  a  musical  note.  Both  appear  con- 
stant only  because  they  are  incessantly  reproduced.  Or  it 
is  like  the  flame  of  a  lamp  when  undisturbed.  It  seems  to 
be  a  resting  thing ;  but  it  is  only  the  phenomenon  of  a  con- 
tinuous process  of  combustion.  We  call  it  a  thing,  while  it 
is  really  a  process.  In  the  case  of  the  changing  velocities, 
no  one  of  them  abides;  that  which  is  permanent  is  the  or- 
der of  change  itself.  So,  in  the  doctrine  of  becoming,  the 
process  alone  is  permanent.  The  forms  of  the  process, 
which  we  call  things,  are  forever  coming  and  going. 

Now  the  objector  who  finds  contradictions  in  the  notion 
of  change  fails  to  notice  the  continuity  and  universality  of 
the  process.  He  seeks  to  find  a  permanent  and  changeless 
substratum  in  being,  and,  of  course,  has  no  difficulty  in 
showing  that  change  cannot  be  combined  with  such  a  factor. 


84:  METAPHYSICS. 

But  the  disciple  of  Hcraclitns  denies  the  existence  of  any 
such  factor.  For  him,  all  is  changing,  except  the  change- 
less laws  of  change.  If  A  becomes  Av  the  objector  con- 
ceives-A  as  first  ceasing  to  be  A,  and  then,  after  a  void  pe- 
riod, becoming  Ar  Such  a  notion  of  change  would,  in- 
deed, be  absurd;  but  the  Heraclitic  holds  no  such  view. 
He  holds  that  A  does  not  first  cease  to  be  A,  and  then  be- 
come Aj,  but  it  ceases  to  be  A  in  becoming  Aa ;  and  it  be- 
comes Aj  in  ceasing  to  be  A;  just  as  a  body  with  variable 
motion  does  not  first  lose  one  velocity,  and  then  acquire  an- 
other, but  it  loses  one  in  acquiring  another.  The  losing  and 
the  acquiring  are  the  same  fact  seen  from  opposite  sides. 
So,  also,  the  ceasing  of  A  and  the  becoming  of  Aj  are  the 
same  fact  seen  from  opposite  sides.  Seen  from  behind,  it  is 
the  ceasing  of  A ;  seen  from  before,  it  is  the  becoming  of 
Ar  K"ow  it  is  only  in  this  sense  that  change  implies  that 
A  is  both  A  and  A1  at  the  same  time.  There  is  no  indivis- 
ible instant  in  which  A  rests  as  both  A  and  Ax,  but  one  in 
which  A  ceases  to  be  A  and  becomes  Aj ;  precisely  as  a 
moving  point  never  moves  with  two  velocities  in  the  same 
direction  at  the  same  moment;  but,  in  an  indivisible  in- 
stant, it  ceases  to  move  with  one  velocity  and  begins  to 
move  with  another.  But  the  fact  that  the  one  indivisible 
flow  divides  itself  for  our  thought  into  two  factors — a  ceas- 
ing and  a  becoming — involves  no  more  contradiction  than 
the  fact  that  the  same  curve  is  both  concave  and  convex 
when  seen  from  opposite  sides.  Of  course,  it  is  impossible 
to  construe  this  process  in  thought,  and  tell  how  the  one  on- 
going may  present  these  two  factors ;  but  it  is  no  more  mys- 
terious than  being  itself,  upon  any  theory  whatever.  And, 
just  as  we  do  not  insist  that  the  Eleatic  shall  tell  us  how  his 
resting,  staring  being  is  made,  or  is  possible,  so  we  have  no 
more  right  to  insist  that  the  Heraclitic  shall  tell  how  his  be- 
coming is  made,  or  is  possible.  All  that  can  be  demanded  in 
either  case  is,  that  the  conception  shall  be  consistent,  though 
mysterious,  and  shall  be  forced  upon  us  by  the  facts. 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING.  85 

The  other  form  of  the  objection,  that  change  implies  the 
union  of  being  and  non-being  in  the  same  subject,  needs 
only  a  word.  So  far  as  this  is  not  identical  with  the  preced- 
ing objections,  it  is  a  mere  play  on  words.  The  being  and  the 
non-being,  which  are  united,  are  not  being  and  absolute  non- 
being,  but  only  relative  non-being.  Thus,  in  the  series  A, 
Aj,  A2,  etc.,  the  being  of  A  is  the  non-being  of  the  rest  of 
the  series ;  and  we  might  say  that  A  unites  in  itself  its  own 
being  and  the  non-being  of  Av  etc.  But  such  a  statement 
would  be  only  a  barren  truism.  The  being  of  anything 
whatever  is  also  the  non-being  of  everything  incompatible 
with  it.  So  far  as  the  objection  has  any  significance,  it  af- 
firms that  A,  in  changing,  must  be  both  A  and  Al ;  that  is, 
A  and  non-A  at  the  same  moment ;  but  in  this  form  it  is 
identical  with  the  objections  of  the  preceding  paragraph. 

Thus  far  we  have  not  aimed  to  establish  the  doctrine  of 
becoming  as  a  metaphysical  principle,  but  only  to  develop 
it,  and  to  defend  it  against  some  patent  misunderstandings. 
The  tenability  of  the  doctrine,  and  also  some  other  objec- 
tions, will  come  up  hereafter.  We  return  now  to  the  prob- 
lem with  which  we  started,  Can  change  and  identity  be  rec- 
onciled ;  and  if  so,  how  ? 

The  Eleatics  denied  the  possibility  of  reconciliation.  Ei- 
ther, they  held,  excludes  the  other ;  and  as  being  was  the 
exclusive  category  of  their  system,  they  denied  the  reality 
of  change.  This  view  has  been  partially  reproduced  in  mod- 
ern times  by  Herbart.  The  Hegelians,  also,  have  held  to  the 
necessary  contradiction  between  change  and  identity,  but  only 
with  the  aim  of  illustrating  their  principle,  that  all  reality 
consists  in  the  union  of  contradictions.  All  definite  existence, 
in  their  view,  is  formed  by  the  union  of  being  and  non-be- 
ing. The  solution  of  the  difficulty  furnished  by  spontaneous 
and  uncritical  thinking  consists  in  the  notion  of  a  changeless 
thing  with  changing  states  or  changing  qualities.  These 
change,  but  the  thing  remains  constant.  We  have  in  this 


86  METAPHYSICS. 

popular  view  a  division  of  labor  similar  to  that  in  the  popu- 
lar conception  of  being.  There  we  had  a  rigid  core  of  du- 
ration, which  simply  existed  and  supplied  the  being.  In  ad- 
dition to  this,  there  was  a  certain  set  of  forces,  in  somewhat 
obscure  relations  to  the  being,  which  furnished  the  activity. 
Here  we  have  the  same  core  of  duration,  which  provides  for 
the  identity,  and  a  swarm  of  conditions,  states,  and  quali- 
ties, which  look  after  the  change.  The  identity  is  located 
in  the  core  of  being,  and  the  change  is  attributed  to  the 
states  and  qualities.  Without  doubt,  the  children  of  the 
dragon's  teeth  will  find  in  this  view  the  final  utterance  of 
reason  and  an  end  of  all  discussion ;  but,  still,  we  must  in- 
sist that  this  conception  of  the  changeless  thing  with  chang- 
ing states  is  only  a  spontaneous  hypothesis  of  the  mind, 
whose  adequacy  to  the  \vork  assigned  it  must  be  inquired 
into. 

A  moment's  reflection  serves  to  show  the  untenability  of 
this  popular  view.  A  state  of  a  thing  is  not  something  ex- 
ternally attached  to  the  thing,  but  is  really  a  state  of  the 
thing,  and  expresses  what  the  thing  is  at  the  time.  Any 
other  conception  throws  us  back  into  the  external  concep- 
tion of  inherence,  which  we  have  rejected,  and  makes  the 
thing  useless  as  an  explanation  of  its  states.  For,  if  the 
thing  itself  does  not  change  in  the  changes  of  its  states, 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  states  should  change,  or  why 
their  changes  should  follow  one  direction  rather  than  anoth- 
er. The  thing  itself  must  found  and  determine  its  changes, 
or  they  remain  unfounded  and  groundless.  But,  to  do  this, 
the  thing  itself  must  undergo  an  essential  change ;  for  if  A 
remain  A,  instead  of  becoming  Ar  there  is  no  ground  why 
any  of  the  manifestations  of  A  should  change.  The  exter- 
nal change  must  be  viewed  as  the  external  manifestation  of 
an  internal  change.  A  change  between  things  must  depend 
upon  a  change  in  things.  Now  when  we  remember  that  the 
only  reason  for  positing  things  is  to  provide  some  ground 
for  activity  and  change,  it  is  plain  that  the  changeless  core 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING.  87 

is  of  no  use,  and  must  be  dropped  as  both  useless  and  un- 
provable.  It  will,  indeed,  go  very  hard  with  the  dragon's 
children  to  give  up  this  core  of  rigid  reality,  but  even  they 
may  free  themselves  from  the  delusion  by  persistently  ask- 
ing themselves  what  proof  there  is  of  such  a  core,  and  of 
what  use  it  would  be,  if  it  were  there.  There  is  no  help 
for  it ;  if  being  is  to  explain  change,  change  must  be  put 
into  being,  and  being. must  be  brought  into  the  circle  of 
change.  In  what  sense  a  thing  remains  the  same  we  shall 
see  hereafter;  here  we  point  out  that  it  is  impossible  to  re- 
serve any  central  core  of  being  from  change,  but  being  must 
be  viewed  as  changing  through  and  through. 

Another  attempt  to  solve  the  problem  differs  in  word 
rather  than  in  meaning.  This  theory  assumes  that  things,  in 
themselves,  are  changeless,  but  their  relations  change,  and 
thus  there  arises  for  us  a  changing  appearance,  which,  how- 
ever, does  not  affect  the  underlying  realities.  This  is  the 
common  view  of  physicists.  It  resolves  the  phenomenal 
world  into  an  appearance,  and  places  a  mass  of  changeless 
and  invisible  atoms  beneath  it.  This,  like  the  previous 
view,  is  sufficient  for  practical  purposes,  but  it  is  equally 
untenable,  for  that  change  of  relations  must  be  accounted 
for.  If  we  conceive  these  changeless  elements  in  a  given 
relation,  A,  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  ever  pass 
into  a  new  relation,  B.  Conversely,  if  they  do  pass  into 
the  new  relation,  B,  this  is  thinkable  only  on  the  supposi- 
tion of  a  change  in  the  activity  of  some  or  all  of  the  ele- 
ments ;  and  this,  as  we  have  seen,  implies  a  change  in  the 
things  themselves.  AVithout  this  admission,  the  relations 
remain  independent  of  the  things,  and  unexplained  by  them. 
It  is  impossible  to  find  relief  in  this  conception. 

The  same  criticism  applies  to  Ilerbart's  notion  of  "acci- 
dental views"  (zvfalliffe  Ansichten').  According  to  him, 
the  changes  of  things  are  only  in  appearance,  and  are  due 
entirely  to  the  changing  position  of  the  observer.  Thus 
the  same  line  might  be  a  side,  a  chord,  a  tangent,  a  sine,  a 


88  METAPHYSICS. 

cosine,  or  a  diameter,  according  to  its  relation  to  other  lines, 
and  yet  it  would  be  the  same  line  in  all  these  relations. 
The  relations  would  be  accidental.  According  to  .the  po- 
sition of  the  observer,  therefore,  the  same  thing  may  appear 
in  widely  different  relations,  yet  without  any  change  in  it- 
self. The  change,  then,  is  phenomenal  and  accidental,  rather 
than  essential.  But  this  view,  when  applied  to  the  external 
world,  is  utterly  incredible.  It  denies  all  change  in  the 
substantial  universe,  and  reduces  the  manifold  changes  of 
the  system  to  occurrences  in  us.  But,  even  if  this  view 
were  credible,  the  difficulty  would  not  be  escaped,  but  trans- 
ferred. Change  would  be  removed  from  the  outer  world  to 
the  inner ;  but,  as  the  knowing  mind  also  belongs  to  the 
realm  of  being,  and  is,  indeed,  the  only  being  of  which  we 
have  immediate  experience,  the  difficulty  remains  the  same. 
Apart,  then,  from  the  inherent  incredibility  of  Herbart's 
view,  it  fails  to  meet  the  purpose  of  its  invention.  The 
same  considerations  apply  to  the  proposition  to  view  change 
simply  as  a  succession  of  phenomena,  as  when  qualities  suc- 
ceed one  another,  or  when  images  succeed  one  another  on  a 
screen.  It  may  be  that  the  physical  world  is  only  a  succes- 
sion of  phenomena  in  our  minds;  but  that  succession  must  be 
caused  by  something,  and  perceived  by  something ;  and  thus 
the  change,  which  is  eliminated  from  the  phenomena,  must 
be  found  in  the  producing  agent  and  in  the  percipient  mind. 
"We  may,  then,  locate  the  change  variously,  but  it  is  strictly 
impossible  to  eliminate  change  from  being,  or  to  reserve  any 
core  in  being  from  the  cycle  of  change.  We  are  forced  to 
bring  the  substances  of  the  universe  into  the  stream  of 
change,  and  resign  them,  in  some  sense,  to  the  eternal  flow.  A 
Being  is  process.  Things  are  forever  proceeding  from  them-  \ 
selves,  and,  in  proceeding,  they  become  something  else. 

We  cannot  eliminate  change  from  being,  but  may  we  not 
find  it  possible  to  eliminate  identity  from  change?  If  we 
hold  the  irreducible  hostility  of  change  and  permanence,  we 
may,  with  the  Eleatics,  deny  the  change ;  or,  we  may,  with 


CHANGE   AND  BECOMING.  89 

Ileraclitus,  deny  the  permanence.  The  former  view  proves 
untenable ;  it  remains  to  examine  the  latter. 

Since  the  time  of  Heraclitus,  some  philosophers  have  in- 
clined to  this  view,  and  have  denied  all  elements  of  perma- 
nence and  identity  of  any  sort.  All  things  flow  and  pass. 
But,  in  this  extreme  form,  the  theory  is  intelligible  and  pos- 
sible only  because  it  is  false.  In  speaking  of  the  Eleatic 
theory,  we  pointed  out  that,  if  being  were  strictly  change- 
less, even  the  illusion  of  change  could  not  arise.  Here  we 
point  out  that,  if  all  things  flowed,  even  the  illusion  of  iden- 
tity would  be  impossible.  There  must  be  some  permanent 
factor  somewhere,  to  make  the  notion  possible.  A  flow  can- 
not exist  for  itself,  but  only  for  the  abiding.  The  knowl- 
edge of  change  depends  on  some  fixed  factor,  which,  by  its 
permanence,  reveals  the  change  as  change.  If,  then,  all 
things  flowed — the  thinking  subject  as  well  as  the  object — 
the  doctrine  itself  would  be  psychologically  impossible.  It 
is  commonly  overlooked  by  speculators,  that  succession  and 
change  can  exist,  as  such,  only  for  the  abiding.  Something 
must  stand  apart  from  the  flow,  or  endure  through  it,  before 
change  can  be  conceived.  Hence,  as  a  matter  of  theory,  we 
must  have,  at  least,  an  abiding  or  permanent  knower,  to 
make  the  theory  intelligible ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  conscious- 
ness, we  have  immediate  experience  of  such  a  knowing  sub- 
ject— the  conscious  self.  In  what  this  permanence  consists 
we  shall  see  hereafter.  Our  previous  criticisms  show  that  it 
cannot  consist  in  any  rigid  core  of  being. 

But,  before  going  further,  some  objections  must  be  con- 
sidered, which  have  long  been  struggling  for  utterance.  It 
will  be  said  that,  in  the  series  A,  Av  A2,  etc.,  A1?  A2,  etc., 
are  all  states  of  A,  and  that  A  is  the  same  throughout.  The 
answer  is,  that  A:  is  no  more  a  state  of  A  than  A  is  a  state 
of  Aj  or  of  A2,  etc.  Which  of  these  forms  shall  be  taken 
as  the  base  depends  upon  experience.  When  a  given  form 
is  familiar  to  us,  we  regard  it  as  the  thing,  and  other  possi- 
ble forms  as  its  states ;  but,  in  truth,  any  one  form  is  as 


90  METAPHYSICS. 

much  the  thing  as  any  other.  Thus  we  view  water  as  the 
thing,  and  speak  of  ice  and  vapor  as  states  of  water;  but,  in 
fact,  ice  and  vapor  are  no  more  states  of  water  than  water  is 
a  state  of  them.  But  here  it  will  be  further  urged  that, 
through  all  these  states,  the  substance  remains  the  same.  It 
is  the  same  essence  of  being  which  appears  now  as  A,  and 
now  as  Aj,  etc.  But  we  have  seen,  in  the  previous  chapter, 
that  the  essence  itself  is  nothing  but  the  concrete  law  of  ac- 
tion, and  that  there  is  no  rigid  core  of  being  in  the  thing. 
Hence  the  identity  of  a  thing  does  not  consist  in  a  change- 
lessness  of  substance,  but  in  the  continuity  and  constancy  of 
this  law.  In  further  criticism  of  the  objection,  we  must  ask 
what  is  meant  by  sameness ;  and,  for  the  sake  of  progress, 
•we  venture  the  following  exposition :  A,  under  the  appro- 
priate circumstances,  can  run  through  the  series  An  A2,  A3, 
etc.  B  runs  through  the  series  B,,  B2,  B3,  etc.  C  runs 
through  the  series  C1?  C2,  C3,  etc.  Now,  as  long  as  we  re- 
main in  the  physical  realm,  these  series  can  be  reversed  by 
reversing  the  conditions,  so  that  from  An  we  can  recover  A. 
But,  in  thus  reversing  the  series,  provided  all  the  other  con- 
ditions remain  the  same,  there  is  a  complete  quantitative  and 
qualitative  equivalence  between  the  members  restored  in 
the  regress  and  the  corresponding  members  lost  in  the  prog- 
ress ;  that  is,  Am  will  be  in  all  respects  the  same,  whether 
reached  by  a  progress  from  Am_,  or  by  a  regress  from  Am+1. 
The  indestructibility  of  matter  means  nothing  more  than 
the  possibility  of  working  these  series  back  and  forth  with- 
out quantitative  loss.  When  it  is  made  to  mean  more,  it  is 
always  on  the  strength,  not  of  facts,  but  of  some  alleged  in- 
tuition into  the  nature  of  substance.  Now  the  only  sense  in 
which  Aj  is  the  same  as  A,  or  in  which  the  substance  of  Aa  is 
the  same  as  that  of  A  is,  that  Al  can  be  developed  from  A, 
and,  conversely,  A  can  be  developed  from  Ar  There  is  a 
continuity  between  A,  Av  A2,  etc.,  which  does  not  exist  be- 
tween A,  B,  and  C,  and  that  continuity  is  the  fact  that  A,, 
A2,  etc.,  can  be  developed  from  A,  and  not  from  B  or  C. 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING.  91 

These,  in  turn,  can  only  produce  Bp  B2,  etc.,  or  Cv  C2,  etc. 
Without  doubt,  the  disciple  of  the  senses  will  fancy  that 
there  is  a  core  of  being  which  holds  Av  A2,  etc.,  together, 
and  differentiates  them  from  B  and  C ;  but  this  fancy  has 
been  sufficiently  considered.  Such  a  core  explains  nothing 
to  the  reason,  and  is  only  an  embarrassment.  We  repeat, 
then,  that  in  ontology  a  thing  in  different  states  is  the  same 
only  in  the  sense  of  a  continuity  of  law  and  relation.  Ab- 
solute sameness  or  changelyfesness  is  impossible  in  reality. 
This  conception  of  sameness  is  incompatible  with  change  of 
any  kind,  and  must  be  repudiated. 

Here  some  verbal  objections  appear.  It  will  be  said  that 
our  very  language  condemns  our  theory.  We  are  constantly 
recognizing  the  existence  of  something  which  changes,  and 
thus,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  we  do  homage  to  the  truth  of  be- 
ing. But  this  objection  does  not  dismay  us.  The  thing 
which  changes  is  the  changing  thing.  When,  in  the  series 
A,  A1?  A2,  etc.,  the  change  is  from  A  to  A,,  A  is  the  thing 
which  changes.  When  the  change  is  from  A2  to  A,  or  to 
A3,  A2  is  the  thing  which  changes.  Hereupon,  in  complete 
forgetfulness  of  what  was  said  in  the  last  paragraph,  the  ob- 
jector will  break  out  that  it  is  the  same  thing  which  changes 
throughout.  We  reply,  that  it  is  the  same  only  in  the  sense 
explained.  It  may  be  further  urged  that  our  theory  does 
away  with  being  altogether.  A  exists  only  for  an  instant, 
and  gives  place  to  A15  and  hence  the  element  of  permanence, 
which  is  an  essential  element  of  being,  is  not  provided  for. 
Nothing  really  exists,  but  is  about  to  exist.  This  objection, 
also,  is  only  a  repetition  of  an  error  already  considered.  It 
defines  being  as  a  permanent  substratum,  and  fails  to  notice 
that  this  definition  is  only  a  spontaneous  hypothesis  of  uncrit- 
ical thinking,  and  one  which  will  not  stand  the  test  of  criti- 
cism. Permanence  of  some  kind  there  must  be  somewhere 
in  being,  but  the  nature  of  this  permanence,  and  the  place 
of  its  location,  do  not  yet  appear.  We  have  defined  being 
as  whatever  can  act  in  any  way,  even  for  the  shortest  time ; 


92  METAPHYSICS. 

and,  in  this  sense,  the  members  of  the  series  A,  A15  A2,  etc., 
have  being  so  long  as  they  act.  When  one  member  passes 
into  another,  its  being  becomes  the  being  of  the  other.  A 
acts  as  long  as  it  exists,  and  Al  acts  as  long  as  it  exists. 
Again,  it  will  be  said  that  this  view  implies  that  being  can 
become  non-being,  which  is  unthinkable.  This  is  a  mere 
quibble.  The  view  does  not  imply  that  something  becomes 
nothing,  or  that  nothing  becomes  something,  but  that  some- 
thing becomes  something  else.  A  does  not  become  noth- 
ing, but  A! ;  and  Al  is  not  developed  from  nothing,  but 
from  A.  How  this  can  be  we  do  not  pretend  to  know, 
but  the  conception  is  forced  upon  us  by  the  plainest  facts 
and  the  simplest  kind  of  reasoning.  Without  doubt  the 
disciple  of  the  senses  thinks  he  knows  how  being  can  be ; 
his  great  puzzle  is  to  know  how  being  can  become.  But 
his  knowledge  is  imaginary,  and  his  puzzle  is  no  greater 
than  obtains  with  reference  to  every  ultimate  fact.  Incon- 
ceivability is  no  argument  against  anything,  provided  the 
facts  call  for  it  and  the  conception  be  consistent.  This  is 
especially  true  when  the  alleged  inconceivability  is  only  the 
product  of  mental  paralysis  or  ossification. 

But  our  view  of  change  suggests  another  difficulty,  as  fol- 
lows :  If  A  really  becomes  A15  and  ceases  to  exist  as  A,  the 
unity  of  the  thing  seems  to  disappear,  and  A,  Av  A2,  etc., 
appear  as  different  things.  This  difficulty  we  have  now  to 
consider.  The  charge  that  our  view  cancels  the  unity  of 
the  thing  rests  upon  the  assumption  that  A  is  composed  of 
Aj  plus  A2,  etc.  In  this  case,  A  would  not  be  a  unit,  but 
the  sum  of  Al  plus  A2,  etc.  But  this  view  is  an  error. 
When  A  exists,  it  is  simply  and  solely  A,  and  Av  A2,  etc., 
have  no  existence  whatever.  A  is  strictly  a  unit,  but  such 
a  unit  that,  under  the  proper  circumstances,  it  becomes  Ar 
AJ,  again,  when  it  has  become,  is  the  only  member  of  the 
series  which  is  real.  It  does  not  contain  A  concealed  with- 
in itself ;  it  is  purely  itself.  Misled  by  the  Aristotelian  no- 
tions of  potentiality  and  actuality,  speculators  have  largely 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING.  93 

assumed  that  Av  A2,  etc.,  exist  preformed  and  potentially 
in  A ;  but  this  means  only  that  A  is  such,  not  that  it  will 
develop  Ap  A2,  etc.,  but  that  it  will  develop  into  them; 
and  when  developed  into  them,  it  is  A  no  longer.  In  any 
other  sense,  potential  existence  is  no  existence.  We  may 
say,  rhetorically,  that  the  oak  exists  in  the  acorn ;  but,  in 
truth,  the  oak  does  not  exist  at  all,  but  an  acorn  exists. 
This  acorn,  however,  is  such  that,  under  the  proper  condi- 
tions, an  oak  will  be  developed.  The  phrase  potential  ex- 
istence is  due  to  an  effort  of  the  imagination  to  comprehend 
how  one  thing  can  develop  into  another;  and  the  fancy  is 
entertained  that  the  problem  is  solved  if  we  conceive  the 
future  development  to  be  already  concealed  in  the  present 
reality.  But,  in  fact,  this  view  denies  development ;  for,  in 
the  case  assumed,  there  is  no  development,  but  only  a  let- 
ting loose  of  potentialities,  which  are  also,  and  always,  reali- 
ties. Where  there  is  a  true  development,  the  thing  devel- 
oped absolutely  becomes.  This  notion  of  potentiality  in  no 
way  enables  the  mind  to  comprehend  the  process,  which, 
like  being  itself,  is  utterly  inconstruable.  It  is  something 
to  be  recognized  and  admitted  rather  than  comprehended. 
The  phrase  potential  existence  may  be  allowed  in  rhetoric, 
but  it  is  utterly  misleading  in  metaphysics.  Our  doctrine 
of  change,  therefore,  does  not  conflict  with  the  unity  of  the 
thing,  for  the  thing  is  never  A  and  Aj  and  A2  at  the  same 
time,  but  only  some  one  member  of  the  series,  and,  as  such, 
is  one  and  indivisible. 

But  this  makes  the  other  part  of  the  objection  still  more 
prominent.  How  can  A,  Ap  A2,  etc.,  be  distinguished  from 
a  series  of  different  things  ?  They  do,  indeed,  follow  one 
another  according  to  a  certain  law,  but  each  ceases  to  be 
when  its  consequent  begins.  Aj  is  not  A,  although  it  is 
produced  from  A,  no  more  than  ice  is  water  because  it  can 
be  produced  from  water.  It  is  not  meant  that  these  differ- 
ent things  are  externally  produced,  for  they  really  proceed 
from  one  another;  but  when  they  are  produced,  they  are 


94:  METAPHYSICS. 

different  things.  The  members  of  the  series  A,  A},  A2,  etc., 
are  related  as  cause  and  effect,  although,  by  reversing  the 
conditions,  any  one  may  be  cause  and  any  one  may  be  effect. 
But  there  is  no  reason  for  affirming  any  further  unity  in  the 
series  than  this ;  and  there  is  no  reason  for  declaring  that 
they  are  only  different  states  of  one  and  the  same  thing. 
One  member  is  as  much  the  thing  as  any  other,  and  one 
member  is  as  much  a  state  as  any  other.  And,  since  the 
notion  of  the  same  thing  in  different  states  is  well  calculated 
to  mislead  us,  we  point  out  that,  in  a  system  of  absolute  be- 
coming, this  notion  of  a  state  is  inapplicable.  To  warrant 
its  use,  there  must  be  some  permanent  factor,  which  can 
abide  through  the  changes,  and  distinguish  itself  from  them. 
But  in  this  system  there  is  no  such  factor.  Indeed,  the  con- 
scious self  is  the  only  thing  we  know  of  which  is  capable  of 
having  states.  It  distinguishes  itself  from  its  affections,  and 
affirms  itself  as  abiding  through  them.  But,  where  all  is 
flow,  the  thing  and  the  state  vanish  together ;  and  we  can- 
not speak  of  the  next  member  as  a  state  of  the  preceding, 
for  the  preceding  member  has  disappeared.  A  permanent 
factor  of  some  sort  is  necessary,  to  justify  the  conception  of 
one  thing  with  various  states ;  and  thus  it  becomes  still 
clearer  that  A,  A,,  A2,  etc.,  must  be  regarded  as  different 
things,  having  no  other  connection  than  a  mutual  inter- 
convertibility  according  to  a  certain  law,  like  the  various 
forms  of  energy. 

And  here  we  must  say  that  the  conception  is  sufficient 
for  all  purposes  of  science  and  daily  life.  The  possibility 
of  working  the  series  back  and  forth,  under  definite  condi- 
tions, without  quantitative  loss,  is  all  that  the  physicist  needs 
to  know.  "Whether  it  be  the  same  substance  throughout 
the  series,  or  substance  incessantly  reproducing  itself  accord- 
ing to  a  fixed  law,  is  quite  indifferent  to  physical  science. 
Doubtless  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  find  some  one  with  an 
"intuition"  of  the  absurdity  of  the  latter  view;  but  intui- 
tions are  seldom  resorted  to,  unless  argument  fails.  Cer- 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING.  95 

tainly  no  one  whose  opinion  deserves  attention  \vill  claim 
any  intuition  on  this  point.  Thus  \ve  fall  back  again  into 
the  doctrine  that  all  things  flow.  Reality  is  incessantly  re- 
producing itself,  either  in  the  form  A,  A,  A,  thus  produc- 
ing the  appearance  of  permanence,  or  in  the  form  A,  A1? 
A2,  etc.,  thus  producing  the  appearance  of  change ;  but  the 
flow  is  as  real  in  one  case  as  in  the  other.  Now  in  the  se- 
ries A,  Aj,  A2,  A3,  etc.,  which  is  the  thing?  We  cannot 
make  the  thing  the  sum  of  the  series,  for  that  would  de- 
stroy the  unity  of  the  thing,  and  would  imply  that  all  the 
members  of  the  series  co-exist.  The  truth  is,  that  each  mem- 
ber is  the  thing,  whenever  that  member  acts,  and  the  several 
members  are  the  same  thing  only  in  the  sense  that  each  may 
be  developed  from  the  other.  In  any  other  sense  they 
are  different  things.  Conceived  ontologically,  everything 
changes  to  its  centre,  and,  by  changing,  becomes  something 
else,  similar  or  dissimilar. 

The  current  notion  of  a  thing,  we  have  said,  is  that  of  a 
changeless  thing  with  changing  states.  The  changelessness 
we  have  been  forced  to  give  up;  we  have  now  to  abandon 
the  conception  of  states.  The  same  thing,  ontologically, 
cannot  exist  in  different  states,  for,  in  taking  on  a  new  state, 
it  becomes  a  new  thing.  It  may  be  that  we  shall  somewhere 
find  something  which  is  capable  of  existing  unchanged 
through  its  changes,  and  of  distinguishing  itself  from  those 
changes  as  its  states ;  but  we  cannot  find  it  in  the  realm  of 
ontology.  As  long  as  we  confine  ourselves  to  reasoning  on 
the  notion  of  being,  and  view  it  as  the  subject  of  activity 
and  change,  we  are  forced  to  identify  it  with  its  phases, 'as 
long  as  each  one  lasts.  We  may  illustrate  this  by  the  con- 
servation of  energy  as  rhetorically  understood.  In  the  cor- 
relations of  energy,  there  is  nothing  which  glides  unchanged 
from  one  phase  to  another,  but  each  phase  expresses  the  en- 
tire energy  as  long  as  it  lasts ;  and  when  it  produces  a  new 
phase,  it  vanishes  into  its  effect.  Nothing  is  constant  but 
law  and  numerical  relation.  So  a  thing,  viewed  ontolog- 


96  METAPHYSICS. 

icallj,  is  identical  with  its  phases  while  they  last,  and  when 
it  passes  from  one  to  another  the  cause  disappears  in  the 
effect.  We  have  next  to  add  that  this  separation  of  phases 
is  largely  arbitrary.  In  the  series  A,  Av  A2,  A3,  etc.,  any 
one  member  is  as  much  the  thing  as  any  other;  but  these 
members  are  only  arbitrary  units  in  a  continuous  process, 
like  the  moments  into  which  we  divide  time.  Time  is  not 
composed  of  moments,  but  is  strictly  continuous.  So  the 
process  which  we  call  a  thing  is  also  continuous,  and  the 
sections  into  which  we  divide  it  are  only  products  of  our 
thought.  A,  Aj,  A2,  A3,  etc.,  are  only  segments  of  a  proc- 
ess which  appears  now  as  one  member  of  the  series,  and  now 
as  another.  It  cannot  be  detained  as  any  one,  and  it  no 
sooner  comes  than  it  goes.  Being  in  incessant  progress,  it 
forces  itself  from  form  to  form,  nor  tarries  in  one  stay. 
This  is  the  conception  of  being  which  rules  in  all  systems 
of  philosophical  evolution.  Being  is  perpetual  process,  and 
exists  only  in  its  incessant  procession.  Motion  and  change 
are  omnipresent.  Things  as  they  appear  are  only  stages  of 
the  eternal  flow,  or  transient  eddies  in  the  flood.  The  in- 
cessant weaving  is  attended  by  incessant  unweaving,  and 
sooner  or  later  all  things  pass,  except  the  procession  of  be- 
ing itself.  Purely  ontological  thinking  can  come  to  no  oth- 
er conclusion. 

But  how  can  there  be  any  fixed  system  of  law  in  such  a 
flow  ?     If  everything  passes,  law  itself  should  pass ;  for  no 
one  would  imagine  that  law  has  an  independent  existence 
apart  from  reality,  and  rules  it  as  an  external  sovereign. 
We  reply  that  law  itself  is  only  an  abstraction  from  the 
form  of  a  thing's  activity.     The  law  is  not  first,  and  the 
obedient  activity  second,  but  the  active,  changing  reality  is-, 
first  and  all,  and,  by  the  definite  form  and  sequence  of  itsjjl 
activity,  it  founds  the  abstraction  which  we  call  law.     Well 
conceive  reality,  therefore,  to  be  perfectly  definite  at  each  • 
instant,  and  as  shut  up  to  a  perfectly  definite  line  of  move- 
ment.   This  definiteness  is  the  source  of  all  that  we  call  law. 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING.  97 

But  it  is  high  time  to  inquire  after  the  permanent  and 
identical.  We  have  gone  so  far  with  Heraclitus  that  we 
seem  to  have  left  no  place  for  permanence  and  identity ; 
and,  in  truth,  if  we  had  been  left  merely  to  think  upon  the 
question,  we  should  probably  never  have  found  any  escape 
from  the  eternal  flow.  Fortunately,  as  in  the  case  of  unity 
and  diversity,  experience  comes  to  our  aid,  and  shows  that 
reality  has  solved  the  problem  which  speculation  has  failed 
to  master.  In  personality,  or  in  the  self-conscious  spirit, 
we  find  the  only  union  of  change  and  permanence,  or  of 
identity  and  diversity.  The  soul  knows  itself  to  be  the 
same,  and  distinguishes  itself  from  its  states  as  their  perma- 
nent subject.  This  permanence,  however,  does  not  consist 
in  any  rigid  sameness  of  being,  but  in  memory  and  self- 
consciousness,  whereby  alone  we  constitute  ourselves  abid- 
ing persons.  How  this  is  possible  there  is  no  telling;  but 
we  get  no  insight  into  its  possibility  by  affirming  a  rigid 
duration  of  some  substance  in  the  soul.  The  soul,  as  sub- 
stance, forever  changes ;  and,  unlike  what  we  assume  of  the 
physical  elements,  its  series  of  changes  can  be  reversed  only 
to  a  slight  extent.  The  soul  develops,  but  it  never  undevel- 
ops  into  its  former  state.  Each  new  experience  leaves  the 
soul  other  than  it  was ;  but,  as  it  advances  from  stage  to 
stage,  it  is  able  to  gather  up  its  past  and  carry  it  with  it,  so 
that,  at  any  point,  it  possesses  all  that  it  has  been.  It  is  this 
fact  only  which  constitutes  the  permanence  and  identity  of 
self. 

Here  it  will  be  urged  that  this  view  is  only  another  form 
of  Locke's  theory,  which  made  identity  to  consist  in  memo- 
ry ;  and  as  Locke's  view  was  exploded,  even  in  his  own  gen- 
eration, our  view  may  be  regarded  as  demolished  in  advance. 
The  objection  to  Locke's  view  is,  that  memory  does  not 
make,  but  reveals,  identity ;  and,  if  Locke  denied  the  conti- 
nuity of  being  in  the  sense  in  which  we  have  explained  it, 
the  objection  is  fatal.  Memory  does  not  make,  but  reveals, 
the  fact,  that  our  being  is  continuous.  If  our  being  were 


98  METAPHYSICS. 

discontinuous,  or  if  we  were  numerically  distinct  from  our- 
selves at  an  earlier  date,  memory  would  be  impossible.  But 
we  have  seen  that  continuity  is  not  identity.  It  is  itself  a 
flow,  and  means  only  that  the  being  which  now  is  has  been 
developed  from  the  being  which  was.  This  is  all  that  is 
commonly  meant  by  identity.  But  the  question  we  raise 
is,  how  to  bring  a  fixed  factor  into  this  flow,  and  thus  raise 
continuity  to  proper  identity  or  sameness.  And  this  can 
be  done  only  as  the  agent  himself  does  it ;  and  the  agent 
does  it  only  by  memory  and  self-consciousness,  whereby  a 
fixed  point  of  personality  is  secured,  and  the  past  and  pres- 
ent are  bound  together  in  the  unity  of  one  consciousness. 
The  permanence  and  identity,  therefore,  are  products  of  the 
agent's  own  activity.  We  become  the  same  by  making  our- 
selves such.  Numerical  identity  is  possible  on  the  outolog- 
ical  plane ;  but  proper  identity  is  impossible,  except  in  con- 
sciousness. 

At  first  view,  this  position  is  an  extravagant,  and  even 
absurd,  paradox ;  but  we  must  remember  that  the  soul,  as 
substance,  comes  under  the  perpetual  flow.  We  are  not 
conscious  of  a  permanent  substance,  but  of  a  permanent 
self;  and  this  permanence  is  not  revealed,  but  constituted 
by  memory  and  self-consciousness;  for,  if  we  abolish  them, 
and  allow  the  soul  to  sink  to  the  level  of  an  impersonal 
thing,  identity  is  degraded  into  continuity,  and  permanence 
passes  into  flow.  Consciousness,  then,  does  not  simply  re- 
veal permanence  in  change ;  it  is  the  only  basis  of  perma- 
nence in  change.  Of  course,  we  do  not  pretend  to  tell  how 
personality  is  made ;  we  leave  that  for  the  disciple  of  the 
senses.  He  finds  no  difficulty  in  manufacturing  a  person 
by  simply  providing  a  lump  of  rigid  substance,  and  then 
stocking  it  with  divers  faculties.  But,  while  nothing  can 
exceed  the  cheerfulness  with  which  we  admit  that  we  can- 
not construe  the  possibility  of  personality,  nothing,  also,  can 
exceed  the  stubbornness  with  which  we  deny  that  the  rigid 
substance  furnishes  the  least  insight  into  the  possibility. 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING.  99 

If,  then,  the  idea  of  being  must  include  permanence  as  well 
as  activity,  we  must  say  that  only  the  personal  truly  is.  All 
else  is  flow  and  process. 

These  results  are  so  paradoxical,  and  so  easily  misunder- 
stood, that  a  final  caution  must  be  added.  In  general,  com- 
mon-sense understands  by  identity  merely  numerical  identity, 
or  continuity  of  being.  In  this  sense  we,  also,  affirm  iden- 
tity, and  agree  entirely  with  spontaneous  thought.  But  the 
question  we  raise  lies  inside  of  this  numerical  identity.  The 
thing  which  is  thus  numerically  identical  and  continuous  is 
itself  discovered  to  be  a  flowing  principle  of  action ;  and 
here  our  break  with  the  current  view  begins.  Common- 
sense  aims  to  secure  identity  in  diversity  by  the  doctrine  of 
a  permanent  or  changeless  thing  with  changing  states ;  and 
this  view  we  have  been  forced  to  reject.  Change  penetrates 
to  the  centre  of  the  thing,  and  the  only  thing  which  is  per- 
manent is  the  law  of  change.  Eeality,  then,  is  process,  and 
yet  not  a  process  in  which  nothing  proceeds ;  for  being  it- 
self proceeds,  and,  by  proceeding,  incessantly  passes  into 
new  forms,  and  changes  through  and  through.  If,  by  be- 
ing, we  mean  something  which  unites  identity  and  diversi- 
ty, we  must  say  that  the  personal  only  is  able  to  fill  out 
the  notion  of  a  thing.  And  the  conception  of  a  permanent 
thing  with  changing  states  is  founded  as  conception,  as  well 
as  realized  in  being,  by  the  fact  of  the  personal  self.  In- 
deed, the  ontological  categories  are  themselves  nothing  but 
shadows  of  the  living  realities  of  personal  experience;  at 
least,  they  have  a  representable  meaning  nowhere  else. 
Only  in  our  own  activity  does  the  category  of  action  ac- 
quire any  concrete  significance.  Only  in  the  unity  of  con- 
sciousness can  the  category  of  unity  be  realized.  In  the 
consciousness  of  self  as  identical  throughout  change  we  have 
the  only  example  of  identity  in  change.  Apart  from  their 
realization  in  experience,  none  of  these  categories  have  more 
than  a  formal  meaning ;  and  they  defy  all  attempts  to  con- 
ceive them  in  their  abstract  significance.  The  Kantian 


100  METAPHYSICS. 

schemata,  which  were  invented  to  make  this  possible,  dis- 
tort the  categories  rather  than  represent  them.  Instead, 
then,  of  interpreting  personality  from  the  side  of  ontology, 
we  must  rather  interpret  ontology  from  the  side  of  person- 
ality. Only  personality  is  able  to  give  concrete  meaning  to 
those  ontological  categories  by  which  we  seek  to  interpret 
being.  Only  personality  is  able  to  reconcile  the  Eleatic  and 
Heraclitic  philosophies,  for  only  the  personal  can  combine 
change  and  identity,  or  flow  and  permanence.  The  imper- 
sonal abides  in  perpetual  process.  It  may  hereafter  appear 
that  the  impersonal  is  only  a  flowing  form  of  activity,  to 
which,  because  of  its  constancy,  we  attribute  thinghood,  but 
which  is.  in  reality,  only  a  form  of  the  activity  of  something 
deeper  than  itself.  If  this  should  be  the  case,  the  conclu- 
sion would  be  that  the  absolute  person,  not  the  absolute  be- 
ing, is  the  basal  fact  of  existence. 


ACTION  AND  INTERACTION.  1Q1 


CHAPTEK  IY. 

ACTION  AND  INTERACTION. 

THE  common  theory  of  the  system  is,  that  a  plurality  of 
independent  things  exists,  and  that  each  of  these  has  its  own 
hard  and  fast  self-identity  and  individuality.  The  conclu- 
sions of  the  previous  chapter  leave  these  elements  untouched. 
Being  is  indeed  process ;  but  this  process  is  individual,  and 
it  may  be  independent.  But  such  beings  cannot  form  a  uni- 
verse. Each  thing,  being  one  and  independent,  must  be  in- 
different to  all  the  rest.  The  result  would  be  a  sum,  not  a 
system ;  an  aggregate*,  not  a  whole ;  and  even  these  characters 
would  be  due  to  the  observing  mind.  But  popular  think- 
ing, especially  in  its  scientific  form,  is  equally  possessed  of  the 
conviction  that  things  form  a  true  system,  and  that  the  place 
and  functions  of  the  individual  are  determined  by  its  relations 
to  the  whole.  In  order  to  overcome  the  mutual  indifference 
implied  in  the  absolute  self-dependence  and  individuality  of 
things,  things  are  supplied  with  various  forces  whereby  they 
interact  and  determine  one  another,  and  thus  constitute  a 
system.  This  conception  of  independent  things  in  mutual 
interaction  is  the  device  whereby  spontaneous  thought  seeks 
to  reconcile  the  opposition  of  individuality  and  community ; 
it  is  the  answer  of  common-sense  to  a  great  speculative 
problem.  Absolute  individuality  sets  everything  apart  in  a 
self-sufficiency  of  being,  while  existence  in  a  system  implies 
some  community  of  being.  The  underlying  aim  of  this 
chapter  is  to  inquire  whether  individuality  and  community 
of  being  can  be  reconciled,  and,  if  so,  how.  But  to  do  this 


102  METAPHYSICS. 

we  must  inquire  into  our  notions  of  action  and  interac- 
tion. 

/  Action  may  be  either  immanent  or  transcendent.  In  the 
/  former  case,  the  agent  acts  upon  itself;  in  the  latter,  it  acts 
I  upon  something  else.  Thinking  is  a  case  of  the  former ; 
I  attraction  or  repulsion  is  a  case  of  the  latter.  To  this  tran- 
scendent action  we  give  the  name  of  interaction.  In  imma- 
nent action,  the  agent  determines  its  own  state ;  in  interac- 
tion, one  thing  is  determined  by  another.  The  idea  of 
action,  or  causation  in  general,  is  more  extensive  than  that 
of  interaction  ;  so  that  the  latter  is  only  a  special  case  of  the 
former.  Causation  includes  all  action,  whether  creative,  or 
immanent,  or  transcendent ;  while  by  interaction  we  mean 
only  the  determination  of  one  thing  by  another.  This  con- 
ception of  mutual  determination  exhausts  the  notion  of 
causation  so  far  as  it  is  of  use  in  science.  The  scientist,  as 
such,  has  nothing  to  do  with  creation.  He  views  nature  as 
given,  and  seeks  to  find  the  order  of  its  changes  and  the  in- 
teraction of  its  parts.  But  this  interaction  creates  no  sub- 
stance, but  causes  new  states.  The  physicists  are  fond  of 
saying  that  the  indestructibility  of  matter  is  the  corner-stone 
of  their  faith.  The  presence  of  elements  in  the  state  we  call 
heated  determines  a  repulsion  among  the  elements  of  water 
or  gunpowder.  The  presence  of  a  magnet  under  proper 
conditions  will  determine  a  bar  of  iron  to  assume  the  mag- 
netic state.  In  such  cases  we  speak  of  the  determining 
body  as  the  agent  or  cause  of  the  effect ;  and  this  determi- 
nation is  the  whole  of  causation  in  its  scientific  sense.  We 
propose  in  the  present  chapter  to  confine  our  attention  chiefly 
to  the  problem  of  interaction.  The  inquiry  is,  How  is  interac- 
tion, or  transcendent  action,  possible  ?  Of  course  we  do  not 
hope  to  construe  the  process,  but  only  to  find  its  necessary  im- 
plications. Possibly  we  may  find  that  all  apparently  transcen- 
dental action  is  but  a  special  case  of  immanent  action.  The 
discussion  of  this  question  will  enable  us  to  solve  the  other 
problem  of  the  reconciliation  of  individuality  and  community. 


ACTION   AND   INTERACTION.  103 

Bnt  before  advancing  to  the  problem  itself  we  must  ren- 
der our  terms  more  precise.  The  notion  of  determining  has 
a  causal  and  a  logical  significance,  which  should  be  distin- 
guished. Causation  implies  determination,  but  not  converse- 
ly. Thus  the  premises  determine  the  conclusion ;  and  the 
sides  and  angles  of  a  figure  mutually  determine  each  other. 
Again,  we  might  say  that  the  fundamental  equations  of 
dynamics  determine  all  the  possibilities  of  physical  force 
and  motion  ;  or  that  the  axioms  and  intuitions  of  space  and 
number  determine  the  whole  science  of  mathematics.  Yet 
in  none  of  these  cases  is  there  any  action.  The  determina- 
tion is  the  logical  determination  of  ideas  ;  and  their  relations 
are  as  fixed  as  truth  itself.  Hence  philosophers  have  made 
a  distinction  between  cause  and  effect,  and  ground  and  con- 
sequence. The  former  denotes  a  dynamic  sequence;  the 
latter  denotes  a  logical  one.  By  this,  however,  is  not  meant 
that  the  dynamic  sequence  is  illogical  or  irrational.  On  the 
contrary,  we  must  hold  that  if  the  nature  of  the  interacting 
causes  could  be  fully  grasped  in  thought,  we  could  logically 
deduce  their  necessary  resultant.  "We  have  such  a  case  in 
the  mechanics  of  the  solar  system.  There  we  know  with 
sufficient  accuracy  the  nature  of  the  forces  at  work ;  and 
we  are  able  to  tell  what  they  will  do.  The  principle  that 
only  the  definite  can  produce  the  definite,  or  that  like  ante- 
cedents must  have  like  consequents,  compels  this  admission. 
By  this  principle,  given  causes  are  shut  up  to  given  effects; 
and  hence  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  causes  enable  us  to 
deduce  the  effects.  But  this  principle  leaves  us  as  far  as 
ever  from  knowing  how  interaction  is  possible.  It  merely 
tells  us  what  the  outcome  will  be  if  the  members  interact. 
Thus,  the  mechanics  of  the  solar  system  do  not  tell  us  how 
the  planets  can  attract  one  another,  but  what  will  happen 
if  they  do  attract.  The  possibility  of  the  attraction  is  as- 
sumed and  left  totally  unexplained.  The  dynamic  sequence, 
therefore,  is  logical ;  but  it  is  also  something  more.  It  is  a 
movement  in  reality  and  not  merely  in  thought.  The  logical 


104  METAPHYSICS. 

sequence,  on  the  other  hand,  is  only  a  logical  sequence.  It 
is  only  a  movement  in  the  thought  of  the  reflecting  subject ; 
and  as  such  depends  entirely  upon  the  thinking  mind.  If 
we  conceive  the  present  order  simply  as  a  thought-system, 
we  could  trace  its  entire  outcome  in  logical  sequence  as  far 
as  we  chose  to  follow  it.  A  mind  which  could  fully  grasp 
reality  in  thought  would  be  able  to  deduce  all  its  implica- 
tions. Such  a  mind  would  be  independent  of  observation, 
and  would  need  only  logic.  But  the  advance  in  such  a  case 
would  be  due  entirely  to  the  nature  and  unity  of  the  think- 
ing subject,  which  by  its  unity  brings  the  several  members 
together,  and  by  its  rational  nature  is  able  to  develop  their 
logical  implications.  But  if  the  outer  world  be  real,  and  the 
course  of  nature  be  a  fact,  this  thought-movement  must  be  set 
in  reality,  so  that  the  thought  is  replaced  by  the  thing,  and 
the  logical  connection  replaced  by  a  dynamic  one.  The 
primary  distinction,  then,  between  cause  and  ground  is  that 
between  a  thing  and  a  thought ;  and  the  basal  distinction  be- 
tween effect  and  consequence  is  that  between  a  dynamic 
result  and  a  logical  conclusion.  The  thing  is  able  to  exist 
and  maintain  relations  apart  from  our  thinking ;  the  thought 
exists  only  as  it  is  thought.  The  dynamic  process  goes  on 
without  us ;  the  logical  conclusion  exists  only  as  it  is  drawn. 
Logic  rules  in  both  realms  with  absolute  supremacy ;  but  in 
one  case  it  is  logic  set  in  reality,  in  the  other  it  is  logic 
controlling  the  movement  of  our  thought. 

In  addition  to  this  primary  meaning,  ground  and  conse- 
quence have  a  secondary  one.  By  cause  we  always  mean 
an  agent  of  some  sort ;  but  there  must  be  some  ground  why 
the  agent  acts  as  it  does.  Logic  is  not  content  with  reach- 
ing the  agent,  but  asks  for  the  ground  of  the  peculiar  form 
of  agency.  It  analyzes  the  agent,  and  finds  the  ground  of 
its  peculiar  action  in  the  agent's  nature  and  relations.  But 
this  nature,  though  determining,  is  never  causal.  The  nature 
of  the  mind  does  not  cause  it  to  unfold  and  act  as  it  does, 
but  the  mind  is  determined  in  itself  to  its  peculiar  manifes- 


ACTION  AND  INTERACTION.  105 

tations.  The  subtlest  form  of  moral  determinism  avails  itself 
of  this  conception.  The  mind  is  viewed  not  as  coerced  into 
this  or  that,  but  as  essentially  determined  to  it ;  so  that  with- 
out compulsion  there  is  still  absolute  necessity.  Spinoza 
carried  this  notion  so  far  as  to  identify  freedom  and  neces- 
sity. Everything  is  free  when  not  externally  coerced ;  but 
where  there  is  no  coercion,  there  is  still  complete  determina- 
tion. As  the  intellect,  when  the  premises  are  clearly  grasp- 
ed, moves  fate-like  to  the  conclusion,  so  the  will  is  at  once 
fated  and  free.  Thus  logic  penetrates  beyond  the  cause  and 
asks  for  the  ground  as  well. 

'We  may  say,  then,  that  the  cause  of  an  effect  is  the  agent 
which  produces  it.  The  ground  is  that  factor  in  the  cause 
and  its  relations  whereby  it  is  able  to  be  the  cause  of  this 
particular  effect.  Thus  oxygen  and  hydrogen  are  the  agents 
which  produce  water ;  but  if  we  ask  for  the  ground  of  this 
production,  we  shall  find  it  in  neither,  but  only  in  both — in 
their  peculiar  natures  and  in  their  peculiar  relations  to  each 
other.  This  thought  has  been  pushed  so  far  by  Leibnitz  as 
to  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  complete  ground  of  any 
event  can  be  found  only  in  the  entire  system.  For  in  a  sys- 
tem of  interacting  things,  where  every  thing  determines 
every  other  thing  and  is  determined  by  every  other  thing, 
every  thing  is  what  it  is,  and  does  what  it  does,  only  as  a 
member  of  the  system.  It  does  not  have  its  properties  in 
itself,  but  only  as  a  part  of  the  whole.  Hence,  though  the 
agent  in  any  case  is  some  particular  thing,  the  ground  of  its 
agency,  or  that  factor  which  makes  the  particular  form  of 
agency  possible,  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  system  as  a 
whole.  The  tendency  of  one  form  of  pantheistic  specula- 
tion is  to  destroy  this  distinction  between  cause  and  ground, 
or  rather  to  reduce  cause  to  ground;  so  that  the  universe  is 
not  viewed  as  a  plan  and  act  of  God,  but  as  a  logical  impli- 
cation of  the  world-substance.  And  since  logical  sequences 
coexist  with  the  premises,  the  eternal  world-substance  im- 
plies its  logical  consequences  in  eternal  coexistence.  This 


106  METAPHYSICS. 

tendency  finds  its  classical  expression  in  Spinoza's  system. 
In  treating  of  time  we  shall  see  more  clearly  the  difficulty 
of  keeping  cause  distinct  from  ground. 

This  relation  of  cause  and  ground  explains  the  distinction 
made  by  popular  thought  between  the  cause  and  the  condi- 
tions of  an  effect.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  system  the 
complete  ground  of  an  event  never  lies  in  any  one  thing, 
but  only  in  a  complex  of  things.  If  a  single  thing  were  the 
sufficient  ground  of  an  effect,  the  effect  would  coexist  with 
the  thing,  and  all  effects  would  be  instantaneously  given. 
Hence  all  effects  in  the  system  must  be  viewed  as  the  result 
of  the  interaction  of  two  or  more  things.  This  doctrine, 
first  made  prominent  by  Herbart,  has  been  rendered  familiar 
to  English  thought  by  Mill ;  and  may  be  viewed  as  general- 
ly accepted  among  thinkers.  But  popular  thought  prefers 
to  explain  the  fact  in  another  way.  The  cause  of  an  effect 
is  supposed  to  be  single ;  but  it  is  conditioned  in  its  Mark- 
ing. There  are,  then,  causes  and  conditions  of  effects.  The 
most  prominent  factor  is  commonly  singled  out  as  the  cause, 
and  the  others  are  degraded  into  conditions.  In  practice, 
this  distinction  is  not  without  value ;  but  in  theory  it  is  un- 
tenable. All  conditions  are  co-operating  causes,  and  nothing 
is  a  cause  which  cannot  produce  its  effect.  Under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  law  of  identity,  we  carelessly  call  that  which 
may  cause  an  effect  under  certain  conditions  a  cause  at  all 
times ;  and  then  we  shift  the  hinderance  to  the  conditions. 
But  the  inner  discord  of  this  notion  is  palpable.  It  is 
quite  absurd  to  call  that  the  cause  of  an  effect  which,  when 
left  to  itself,  is  unable  to  produce  it.  Of  course,  the  thing 
must  always  be  such  that  when  all  the  conditions  are  ful- 
filled, the  effect  will  follow ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
thing  is  the  sufficient  cause  of  the  effect  at  other  times.  To 
become  this,  it  needs  the  co-operation  of  other  agents.  It 
does  not  help  to  call  these  other  things  conditions ;  for  if 
they  are  to  contribute  anything  to  the  result,  they  must 
themselves  be  causes.  They  must  be  able  to  determine  the 


ACTION  AND  INTEKACTION.  1Q7 

interacting  things  to  an  efficiency  which,  they  would  not 
otherwise  have ;  and  this  is  just  what  is  meant  by  causation. 

We  next  inquire  what  is  meant  by  an  effect.  Remaining 
still  in  the  realm  of  interaction,  we  point  out  that  an  effect 
in  this  realm  is  not  creation,  but  some  form  of  change. 
Things  are  not  created  and  destroyed  in  their  interactions, 
but  they  pass  into  new  conditions.  The  change  is  the  effect. 
This  change  may  be  both  phenomenal  and  noumenal,  or  a 
change  in  appearance  and  a  change  in  being.  The  change 
in  being  is  the  primal  effect ;  and  the  phenomenal  change  is 
but  the  translation  of  this  first  effect  into  the  forms  of  sense. 
All  changes  which  appear  among  things  are  the  result  of 
changes  in  things.  For  being  itself  the  reflective  reason 
never  asks  a  cause,  unless  the  being  show  marks  of  depend- 
ence. It  is  change  which  first  gives  rise  to  the  demand  for 
cause.  If  this  be  so,  the  untenability  of  Hamilton's  view  of 
causation  becomes  palpable.  According  to  him  the  law  of 
causation  depends  upon  our  inability  to  conceive  creation ; 
and  means,  therefore,  the  eternal  self  -  equality  of  being. 
This  notion  of  causation  at  best  applies  only  to  creation  and 
not  to  interaction.  And  if  the  effect  be  change,  it  gives  us 
no  insight  to  tell  us  that  there  has  been  no  loss  or  gain  of 
being ;  for  the  question  is  to  know  why  being  should  take 
on  new  forms.  That  it  is  the  same  being  in  the  new  form 
does  not  explain  the  change ;  and  yet  this  is  the  thing  to  be 
accounted  for. 

But,  thus  far,  we  have  dealt  only  with  the  use  and  mean- 
ing of  the  words ;  the  nature  and  possibility  of  the  thing 
remain  as  dark  as  ever.  We  next  pass  to  the  problem  it- 
self, by  asking,  (1)  How  is  immanent  action  possible  ?  and, 
(2)  How  is  interaction  possible  ?  The  first  question  admits 
of  no  answer.  Action,  in  every  form,  is  as  great  a  mystery 
as  being  itself,  and  admits  of  no  deduction  or  comprehen- 
sion. Like  being  and  becoming,  it  cannot  be  compounded 
from  simpler  ideas,  or  in  any  way  construed.  The  empiri- 
cists have  sought  to  dispense  with  the  notion,  but,  to  do  so, 


108  METAPHYSICS. 

have  used  the  notion  itself.  Their  scheme  consists  entirely 
in  showing  how  beliefs  might  be  caused,  or  produced,  or  de- 
termined, by  experience.  If  there  were  no  such  thing  as 
causation,  their  argument  would  be  empty.  Action,  then, 
must  be  recognized,  but  cannot  be  understood.  How  a 
thing  can  act,  how  we  ourselves  can  act,  how  a  given  state 
of  any  thing  can  be  the  ground  of  change  in  other  things,  or 
even  in  itself — all  these  are  insoluble  questions.  How  is  it 
possible  that,  when  certain  conditions  are  fulfilled,  oxygen 
and  hydrogen  unite  to  form  water?  There  is  no  answer. 
A  pretended  answer  would  be,  that  they  always  have  a  ten- 
dency to  unite,  but  that  they  are  hindered  by  circumstances. 
When  the  hinderances  are  removed,  they  flow  together  as  a 
matter  of  course.  But  this  is  imaginary.  How  do  we  know 
that  they  have  any  tendency,  except  when  it  is  fulfilled? 
How  do  we  know  that  the  tendency  and  the  act  do  not  ap- 
pear together  ?  And,  supposing  they  have  a  tendency,  how 
does  it  pass  from  potentiality  into  act?  The  question  re- 
mains the  same;  the  answer  is  no  answer.  We  have  to 
content  ourselves  with  the  fact  that  action  is  possible  with- 
out knowing  how.  At  the  same  time,  its  possibility  is  no 
more  mysterious  than  its  impossibility.  How  can  a  thing 
act?  How  can  a  thing  be?  Both  questions  stand  on  the 
same  plane ;  and  both  facts — that  of  action  and  that  of  be- 
ing— have  to  be  admitted  as  ultimate  facts,  which  we  can 
never  rationally  hope  to  comprehend.  Here,  again,  experi- 
ence solves  for  us  the  problem  which  reflection  cannot  mas- 
ter. Every  one  knows  himself  as  active.  We  control  and 
direct  our  own  mental  states,  to  a  certain  extent,  at  least, 
and,  in  so  doing,  we  are  conscious  of  ourselves  as  control- 
ling. And  this  is  our  only  experience  of  action.  In  the  out- 
er world  we  see  sequence  in  phenomena,  or  mutual  change, 
but  no  agency.  That  there  is  an  agent  producing  these 
changes  is  no  fact  of  experience,  but  a  necessary  assumption 
of  the  mind.  Even  in  the  case  of  our  neighbors,  we  see 
only  a  succession  of  changes.  That  there  is  a  controlling 


ACTION  AND  INTERACTION.  109 

self  is  not  a  perception,  but  an  inference.  Only  in  the  case 
of  our  own  mental  action  can  we  get  behind  the  appearance 
to  the  source  of  action ;  and  how  we  ourselves  can  act  we 
do  not  know.  But  all  external  action  must  be  assimilated 
to  our  own,  or  remain  utterly  mysterious.  Conception,  vo- 
lition, and  a  sense  of  effort  condition  the  only  action  of 
which  we  have  any  knowledge ;  but  it  is  not  clear  that  we 
are  justified  in  viewing  them  as  conditions  of  all  action. 
At  the  same  time,  it  is  not  clear  that  we  are  justified  in  ex- 
cluding them  from  any  action.  Many  philosophers  have 
insisted  that  there  can  be  no  action  without  conscious  voli- 
tion. Berkeley  urged  this  view  as  one  reason  for  denying 
agency  to  matter.  And  it  must  be  allowed  that,  when  we 
try  to  conceive  impersonal  activity,  it  vanishes  into  sequence, 
and  the  notion  of  action  perishes.  Kant  made  antecedence 
and  sequence  the  schema  of  cause  and  effect,  as  the  only 
form  under  which  causation  can  be  represented  to  the  mind, 
and  the  empiricists  declare  that  causation  is  nothing  more. 
Conscious  action  is  the  only  action  of  which  we  can  form 
any  conception.  If  A  is  to  react  on  B,  in  certain  condi- 
tions, it  must  in  some  way  become  aware  of  those  condi- 
tions, and  if  not  consciously,  how  then  ?  All  is  darkness  in 
this  direction.  Action  is  a  fact,  and  hence  is  possible.  "We 
know  nothing  more.  We  may  add,  however,  that,  though 
we  hold  that  all  activity  is  personal,  we  are  not  content  to 
get  the  conclusion  from  the  simple  fact  that  we  cannot  pict- 
ure impersonal  activity.  The  argument  from  impotence 
warrants  no  positive  conclusion. 

Of  interaction  we  have  no  proper  experience  whatever. 
That  it  is  possible  is  no  fact  of  experience,  but  a  necessary 
mental  affirmation.  It  may  be  thought  that,  in  the  case  of 
volition  producing  physical  motion,  we  have  immediate  ex- 
perience of  interaction  between  the  soul  and  body ;  but  this 
is  a  mistake.  All  we  experience  is  that,  upon  occasion  of  a 
specific  volition,  certain  physical  changes  occur,  but  of  the 
nature  of  the  connection  we  know  strictly  nothing.  To  be 


110  METAPHYSICS. 

sure,  the  physical  state  does  not  enter,  except  as  a  sequence 
upon  the  mental  state ;  but  why  the  one  should  be  followed 
by  the  other,  or  what  the  nature  of  the  bond  may  be,  is  as 
unknown  as  in  the  case  of  gravitation.  We  are  often  mis- 
led, at  this  point,  by  our  sense-experience.  We  imagine 
that  we  feel  our  own  power  flowing  over  upon  the  body 
and  controlling  it.  A  certain  sense  of  effort  manifests  itself, 
and  we  seem  so  to  permeate  the  body  that  our  owii  spiritual 
force  comes  in  contact  with  the  reality.  But  the  sense  of 
tension  and  effort  in  the  muscles,  in  such  cases,  is  but  the 
reaction  of  the  organism  against  the  volition,  and  has  mere- 
ly the  function  of  teaching  us  how  to  measure  our  activity. 
In  itself,  the  will  is  as  boundless  and  as  passionless  as  the 
conception,  and  when  the  limits  of  physical  possibility  are 
reached,  it  is  not  the  will  which  has  failed,  but  the  machine. 
We  must  say,  then,  that  we  have  no  proper  experience  of 
interaction,  but  only  of  antecedence  and  sequence.  It  re- 
mains a  thought -problem  rather  than  a  datum  of  experi- 
ence. 

This  brings  us  to  our  second  question,  How  is  interaction 
possible  ?  At  first,  it  would  seem  that  this  question  is  as 
insoluble  as  the  other  question,  How  is  immanent  action 
possible?  And,  since  we  allowed  that  no  answer  can  be 
given  to  this  question,  is  there  any  reason  for  attempting 
more  in  the  case  of  interaction  ?  We  think  there  is  a  differ- 
ence between  the  problems,  which  makes  a  different  treat- 
ment necessary.  The  notion  of  interaction  involves,  in  par- 
ticular, one  difficulty,  which  does  not  exist  for  immanent  ac- 
tion. Every  thing  which  is  to  act  on  some  other  thing  must 
transcend  itself.  But  how  can  a  thing  transcend  itself,  and 
act  where  it  is  not  ?  Again,  the  common  notion  of  a  thing 
implies  that  it  is  self-centred,  and  has  the  ground  of  its  ex- 
istence in  itself.  But  if  a  thing  is  to  be  acted  upon  by  an- 
other thing,  it  must  be  determined  from  without  as  well  as 
from  within.  The  ground  of  its  being,  then,  is  not  in  itself 


ACTION  AND  INTERACTION.  m 

alone,  but  in  other  things  as  well.  We  have  shown  at  length, 
in  the  previous  chapter,  that  every  definite  manifestation  im- 
plies a  definite  form  of  being,  and,  as  in  an  interacting  sys- 
tem, everything  does  what  it  does  because  of  its  relation  to 
others,  it  follows  that,  in  such  a  system,  every  thing  is  what 
it  is  only  in  relation  to  others.  Here  the  individuality  which 
spontaneous  thought  posits  conflicts  with  the  community 
which  interaction  posits.  These  difficulties  do  not  exist  in 
the  case  of  immanent  action,  and  they  make  the  question  of 
interaction  a  separate  and  peculiar  problem. 

The  answers  given  to  this  question  by  popular  thought 
are  such  only  in  appearance.  For  example,  it  is  said  that  a 
thing  transfers  its  state  or  condition  to  the  thing  acted  upon, 
and  this  transference  is  the  act.  But  this  notion  is  due  to 
hopeless  bondage  to  the  senses.  It  is  simply  one  of  the 
spontaneous  hypotheses  of  common-sense,  and  gives  a  little 
comfort  to  the  imagination.  Action  is  conceived  as  a  thing 
which  may  be  passed  along  from  one  to  another.  But, 
when  this  view  is  taken  in  earnest,  it  meets  at  once  the  fa- 
tal objection  that  states,  conditions,  and  attributes  are  noth- 
ing apart  from  a  subject.  As  such,  they  admit  of  no  trans- 
ference. The  adjective  is  meaningless  and  impossible  with- 
out the  noun.  But  the  human  mind  has  a  persistent  ten- 
dency to  personify  its  abstractions;  in  particular,  abstract 
nouns,  which  are  much  used,  are  sure  to  be  mistaken  for 
things.  Thus  the  empiricist  takes  sensations  which  arc  nev- 
er known  except  as  states  of  a  mental  subject,  breaks  them 
from  the  only  connection  in  which  they  have  any  meaning, 
and  then  parades  them  as  the  source  of  the  mind  itself. 
The  facts  which  have  led  to  this  notion  of  transference  of 
conditions  are  chiefly  those  of  transmitted  heat  and  motion. 
Here  we  see  effects  which  may  well  enough  be  described  as 
the  transference  of  a  condition.  The  moving  body  puts  an- 
other body  in  motion,  and  loses  its  own.  The  heated  body 
warms  another,  and  cools  itself  in  the  same  proportion. 
The  magnet  brings  another  body  into  the  magnetic  state, 


112  METAPHYSICS. 

and  seems  to  have  forced  its  own  condition  upon  it.  These 
are  facts  for  interpretation.  Spontaneous  thought  says  that 
the  agent,  in  such  a  case,  transfers  its  condition  ;  but  this  is 
only  a  description,  not  an  explanation.  Indeed,  it  is  inex- 
act, even  as  a  description ;  for  what  we  really  see  is  propa- 
gation, not  transmission  or  transference.  A  condition  can- 
not be  transmitted  or  transferred,  because  the  notion  of  a 
state  or  condition  without  a  subject  is  impossible  in  thought. 
The  fact  is,  that  the  moving,  or  heated,  or  magnetic  body, 
in  some  totally  mysterious  way,  propagates  its  state.  Of  the 
inner  nature  of  the  process  we  know  nothing,  and  the  pre- 
tended explanation  is  only  an  indifferent  description.  Even 
in  cases  of  impact  the  process  is  equally  mysterious.  We 
see  the  result,  and  fancy  we  understand  the  method ;  but 
there  is  nothing  whatever  in  spatial  contact  to  explain  the 
results  of  impact,  unless  there  be  a  deeper  metaphysical  re- 
lation between  the  bodies,  which  generates  repulsion  be- 
tween them.  Added  to  these  considerations  is  the  further 
fact  that  interaction  does  not  imply  that  the  effect  shall  be 
like  the  cause ;  and,  in  the  mass  of  interaction,  the  effect  is 
totally  unlike  the  cause.  A  new  condition  is  produced  in 
the  thing  acted  upon,  but  one  quite  unlike  that  of  the  agent 
itself. 

Empty  as  this  view  of  the  transference  of  conditions 
seems,  when  looked  at  closely,  it  has  still  had  a  great  influ- 
ence in  speculation.  The  famous  phrase,  "Only  like  can 
affect  like,"  is  the  same  view  in  another  form.  This  pre- 
tended principle  has  found  its  chief  application  in  discuss- 
ing the  interaction  of  soul  and  body,  and  both  idealistic  and 
materialistic  conclusions  have  been  based  upon  it.  If  one 
started  with  the  reality  of  the  body,  the  soul  was  degraded 
to  material  existence.  If  the  soul  was  made  the  starting- 
point,  of  course  it  was  impossible  to  reach  a  real  body  ex- 
cept by  an  act  of  faith.  Hence,  also,  the  occasionalism  of 
the  Cartesians  and  Malebranche's  theory  of  the  vision  of  all 
things  in  God.  Now  this  maxim,  that  like  affects  only  like, 


ACTION  AND   INTERACTION.  H3 

is  mainly  based  upon  the  notion  that  in  interaction  some- 
thing leaves  the  agent  and  passes  into  the  patient.  On  this 
assumption,  we  see  the  necessity  of  the  maxim;  for  how 
could  a  material  state  pass  into  a  spiritual  being  ?  and  how 
could  a  spiritual  state  pass  into  a  material  thing  ?  The  spir- 
itual state  must  partake  of  the  nature  of  spirit,  and  the  ma- 
terial state  must  partake  of  the  nature  of  matter.  The  two, 
then,  must  be  incongruous.  Hence,  it  was  concluded  that 
body  and  soul  could  not  affect  each  other.  No  more  could 
any  two  tilings  affect  each  other,  so  far  as  they  were  unlike. 
The  only  truth  in  this  doctrine  is,  that  things  totally  and 
essentially  unrelated  can  never  pass  into  relations  of  inter-  I 
action,  and,  hence,  that  all  true  being  must  constitute  a  se-j 
ries,  without  any  absolute  oppositions.  The  real  difficulty 
is,  not  to  know  how  like  can  affect  unlike,  but  how  any  two 
things  can  affect  each  other.  Why  should  the  state  of  one 
thing  determine  the  state  of  another? 

Another  verbal  explanation  of  the  problem  is  found  in 
the  notion  of  a  passing  influence,  which,  by  passing,  affects 
the  object.  But  the  same  objection  lies  against  this  view 
as  against  the  preceding.  If,  by  influence,  we  mean  only 
an  effect,  we  have  merely  renamed  the  problem  ;  but,  if  we 
mean  anything  more,  we  make  the  influence  a  thing ;  and 
then  we  must  be  told,  (1)  what  the  thing  is  which  passes ; 
(2)  in  what  this  passing  thing  differs  from  the  things  be- 
tween which  it  passes ;  (3)  what  the  relation  of  the  passing 
thing  is  to  the  thing  from  which  it  passes ;  (4)  where  the 
acting  thing  gets  the  store  of  things  which  it  emits;  and, 
(5)  how  the  passing  thing  could  do  any  more  than  the  orig- 
inal thing  from  which  it  proceeds.  An  attempt  to  answer 
these  questions  will  convince  one  of  the  purely  verbal  char- 
acter of  this  explanation  by  passing  influences.  The  great 
difficulty  with  many  speculators  is,  to  conceive  how  a  thing 
can  act  across  empty  space ;  and  hence  they  think,  if  some- 
thing would  go  across  the  void,  and  lie  alongside  of  the 
thing  to  be  acted  upon,  all  difficulty  would  vanish.  They 
8 


114  METAPHYSICS. 

make  action  at  a  distance  the  real  puzzle  in  interaction. 
But,  to  reason,  the  difficulty  is,  not  to  act  across  empty 
space,  but  to  act  across  individuality.  If  we  conceive  two 
things,  viewed  as  independent  and  self-centred,  occupying 
even  the  same  point  of  space,  we  have  not  advanced  a  step 
towards  comprehending  why  they  should  not  remain  as  in- 
different as  ever.  Contiguity  in  space  helps  the  imagina- 
tion, but  not  the  understanding.  It  is  plain  that  this  notion 
of  a  passing  influence  is  a  mere  makeshift  of  the  imagina- 
tion, which  gives  no  light  when  taken  in  earnest. 

Akin  to  this  view  is  that  current  among  physicists,  ac- 
cording to  which  forces  play  between  things,  and  produce 
effects.  But  this  view  is,  also,  a  device  of  the  imagination, 
and  solves  nothing.  The  fact  to  be  explained,  when  re- 
duced to  its  lowest  terms,  is  this :  When  A  changes,  B,  C, 
D,  etc.,  all  change,  in  definite  order  and  degree.  To  ex- 
plain this  fact,  it  is  said  that  forces  play  between  A,  B,  C, 
etc.  But  here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  influence-theory,  the 
force  must  be  either  a  mere  name  for  a  form  of  activity,  or 
it  must  be  a  thing,  and  either  alternative  is  inadmissible. 
If  force  be  a  mere  name,  it  explains  nothing ;  and,  if  it  be 
a  thing,  it  leaves  the  question  worse  than  before.  All  the 
questions  asked  about  the  influence  would  arise  about  the 
force.  Thus  our  difficulties  are  increased,  and  no  insight  is 
gained.  Besides,  we  have  seen  that  force  is  only  an  ab- 
straction from  the  forms  of  a  thing's  activity.  Tilings  do 
not  act  because  they  have  forces;  but  they  act,  and  from 
this  activity  the  mind  forms  the  abstraction  of  force.  To 
say  that  things  are  held  together  by  their  attractions  is  only 
to  describe  the  fact.  The  attractions  are  nothing  between 
the  things,  like  subtle  cords,  which  bind  them  together. 
They  are  merely  abstractions  from  the  fact  that  coexistent 
material  things,  in  certain  conditions,  tend  towards  one  an- 
other. They  do  not  give  the  slightest  insight  into  the  fact 
or  its  possibility.  Again,  things  are  often  said  to  have 
spheres  of  force  about  them ;  but  this,  too,  is  only  a  de- 


ACTION  AND  INTERACTION.  H5 

scription  of  facts.  The  sole  reality  is  things,  and  between 
and  beyond  them  is  nothing ;  but  these  things  are  not  mutu- 
ally indifferent,  but  are  implicated  in  one  another's  changes. 
This  relation  may  be  illustrated  as  follows :  If  we  conceive 
a  perfectly  elastic  system  in  equilibrium,  any  permanent 
displacement  of  any  part  would  demand  a  readjustment  of 
all  the  other  parts,  in  order  to  restore  equilibrium.  Thus,  a 
change  in  any  part  would  involve  a  change  in  all  parts. 
The  actual  system  implies  a  like  community  of  being.  The 
position  and  condition  of  each  has  a  significance  for  the 
whole,  and  for  any  change  in  any  one  part  there  is  a  cor- 
responding change  in  all  the  rest.  But  how  can  indepen- 
dent things  stand  in  such  relations  of  community  and  inter- 
action ?  The  scientific  doctrine  of  forces  which  play  be- 
tween things  merely  describes  the  fact  itself;  taken  as  an 
explanation,  it  is  grotesquely  untenable.  Indeed,  the  ad- 
mission that  these  go-between  forces  are  only  abstractions 
from  the  fact  to  be  explained  reduces  the  physical  theory  to 
the  harmony  of  Leibnitz.  Each  thing  is  supposed  to  be  in- 
dividual, and  it  gives  and  receives  nothing.  Things  move 
in  parallel  lines,  and  that  is  all.  But  this  is  essentially 
Leibnitz's  theor}r. 

The  notion  of  interaction  being  thus  obscure  and  difficult, 
it  has  occurred  to  many  speculators  to  eliminate  it  entirely 
from  the  system.  These  attempts  are  various.  Mechanical 
physicists  have  largely  sought  to  reduce  all  interaction  to 
mechanical  impact,  in  the  hope  of  removing  the  difficulty. 
In  particular,  it  has  been  imagined  that  the  question  of 
gravitation  would  be  much  simplified  if  attraction  could  be 
deduced  from  impact.  But  this  attempt  is  a  failure  in  phys- 
ics, and  a  worse  failure  in  metaphysics.  "We  have  already 
pointed  out  that  impact,  except  in  an  interacting  system, 
would  be  without  result.  The  speculative  attempts  to  dis- 
card the  notion  of  interaction  are,  (1)  occasionalism  ;  (2)  pos- 
itivism ;  (3)  nihilistic  sensationalism  ;  and,  (4)  the  pre-estab- 
lished harmony  of  Leibnitz.  We  consider  them  in  order. 


116  METAPHYSICS. 

The  theory  of  occasionalism  sprang  especially  from  the 
difficulty  of  comprehending  the  interaction  of  soul  and  body. 
Descartes  made  the  opposition  between  mind  and  matter  so 
absolute  that  there  was  no  longer  any  possibility  of  bringing 
them  together.  But,  as  they  do  seem  to  interact,  his  disci- 
ples invented  the  theory  of  occasional  causes  to  explain  it. 
According  to  this  view,  a  change  in  A  is  in  no  way  the  cause 
of  a  change  in  B,  but  only  its  occasion.  The  excited  nerve 
does  not  cause  the  sensation,  but,  upon  occasion  of  an  ex- 
cited sensory  nerve,  a  sensation  arises.  Conversely,  volition 
does  not  cause  any  physical  movements,  but,  upon  occasion 
of  a  volition,  the  corresponding  motion  takes  place.  This 
view,  if  taken  as  a  full  and  final  account  of  the  matter,  is 
hopelessly  insufficient.  It  leads  at  once  to  idealism.  The 
outer  world  is  posited  by  us  only  as  the  explanation  of  our 
inner  experience;  and  as,  by  hypothesis,  the  outer  world 
does  not  affect  us,  there  is  no  longer  any  rational  ground 
for  affirming  it.  We  can  reach  the  world  only  by  an  act  of 
groundless  faith,  or  else,  with  Malebranche,  by  taking  ref- 
uge in  revelation.  But,  even  if  we  stop  short  of  this  ex- 
treme, it  is  still  untenable ;  for  a  change  in  A  cannot  prop- 
erly be  the  occasion  of  a  change  in  B  without  an  interaction 
between  them.  If  the  change  in  B  is  not  determined  by  A, 
then  it  has  no  ground  whatever  in  A,  and  the  two  changes 
are  not  mutually  occasioned,  but  their  coming  together  is  a 
groundless  coincidence.  In  that  case,  the  world  presents  a 
hopeless  pluralism.  A,  B,  C,  D,  etc.,  are  all  mutually  inde- 
pendent, and  their  changes  are  all  independent.  Whatever 
of  system  there  may  be  in  the  universe  would  be  merely  a 
coincidence,  without  ground,  and  without  surety  of  any 
kind.  The  Cartesians  themselves  did  not  carry  the  notion 
to  this  extent.  They  had  a  real  agent  in  the  case,  but 
viewed  God  as  that  agent.  And  even  this  view  leads  di- 
rectly to  idealism.  The  activities  of  matter  are  commonly 
conceive^  as  purely  external ;  and,  by  hypothesis,  these  ex- 
ternal activities  are  not  the  activities  of  matter,  but  of  God. 


ACTION  AND  INTERACTION.  Hf 

If,  now,  we  view  matter  as  without  subjectivity,  it  has  no 
activity  whatever,  and  becomes  nonexistent.  It  does  noth- 
ing, and  is  nothing.  Occasionalism  is  possible  as  a  consist- 
ent system  only  between  finite  minds ;  and,  even  then,  it 
would  not  do  away  with  the  general  problem  of  interaction, 
for  it  would  necessarily  posit  an  interaction  between  the 
finite  and  the  infinite. 

The  second  view,  that  of  positivism,  regards  all  inquiry 
into  causes  as  both  fruitless  and  hopeless.  Tins  view  would 
restrict  us  entirely  to  a  study  of  phenomena.  When  we 
have  the  orders  of  coexistence  and  sequence  among  phe- 
nomena, we  have  all  that  is  practically  valuable  in  scientific 
study.  We  can  then  read  the  past,  and  previse  and  prepare 
for  the  future.  All  other  knowledge  is  hidden ;  and  it  is 
a  wicked  waste  of  time  to  search  for  it.  We  can  observe 
that  A+B  is  followed  by  C ;  and  this  observation  exhausts 
all  that  is  valuable  in  the  case. 

As  a  rule  for  practical  science,  this  conception  is  invalu- 
able. It  is  practically  indifferent  whether  we  view  foul  air 
as  the  occasion,  cause,  or  invariable  antecedent  of  ill-health. 
The  great  point  is  to  know  that  it  is  such,  and  to  act  accord- 
ingly. It  is  equally  indifferent  whether  we  view  a  given 
drug  as  the  occasion,  antecedent,  or  cause  of  returning  health  ; 
the  important  thing  is  to  know  that  it  is  followed  by  cure, 
even  if  we  do  not  know  how  or  why.  The  same  considera- 
tions apply  to  all  questions  of  practical  science.  Scientists 
have  been  so  often  led  away  from  practical  pursuits  by  vain 
inquiries  into  metaphysical  causes,  that  one  can  fully  sym- 
pathize with  Comte's  prohibition  of  noumenal  research,  and 
can  also  comprehend  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the  new 
philosophical  evangel  was  heard  and  preached.  But  the 
positivists  were  not  content  with  proclaiming  the  inaccessi- 
bility of  metaphysical  causes :  they  inconsistently  proceeded 
to  deny  them,  and  thus  became  metaphysicians  themselves. 
Now  while  we  allow  the  highest  place  to  positivism  as  a 
method  of  practical  research,  we  must  still  insist  that  meta- 


118  METAPHYSICS. 

physically  it  is  quite  untenable.  For  in  order  that  A+B 
shall  be  followed  by  C  and  not  by  X,  A-f-B  must  deter- 
mine C  and  exclude  X.  Without  this  assumption  every- 
thing might  be  followed  by  anything  or  by  nothing.  Each 
phenomenon  would  be  independent ;  it  would  be  undeter- 
mined either  by  its  antecedents  or  by  its  coexistences.  All 
continuity  of  being  would  disappear,  and  a  magical  and 
groundless  series  of  phenomena  would  alone  remain.  To- 
day would  be  independent  of  yesterday,  and  without  effect 
on  to-morrow.  Positivism  becomes  possible  as  an  ultimate 
theory  only  through  the  uncritical  favor  of  common-sense, 
which,  caring  little  for  speculation,  and  understanding  less, 
is  always  willing  to  shield  a  hard-pressed  speculator  from 
the  consequences  of  his  own  opinions. 

A  similar  judgment  must  be  pronounced  upon  the  theory 
of  nihilistic  sensationalism.  This  school,  starting  with  the 
assumption  that  sensation  is  the  sole  source  of  knowledge, 
points  out  that  sense  can  never  reach  causation,  and  then 
claims  that  there  is  no  such  thing.  If  we  grant  the  premise, 
of  course  the  conclusion  follows;  for  it  is  perfectly  plain 
that  causation  can  never  be  observed.  All  we  can  see  is  a 
series  of  changes;  the  determining  agency  is  a  mental  addi- 
tion ;  and  if  the  mind  be  allowed  to  contribute  nothing  to 
knowledge,  we  must  reject  the  causal  judgment  with  all  that 
it  implies.  But  after  we  have  gone  to  this  point,  the  reaction 
sets  in  ;  and  empiricism  devours  itself  by  attempting  to  ex- 
plain our  belief  in  causation.  If  the  doctrine  were  true,  all 
accounting  for  anything,  beliefs  as  well  as  external  phenom- 
ena, should  cease.  But  from  Hume  down,  empiricists  have 
busily  cancelled  their  own  system  by  applying  the  causal  no- 
tion to  justify  its  own  destruction.  Their  explanation  in- 
variably consists  in  hypostasizing  sensations  and  attributing 
to  them  attractions  and  repulsions  among  themselves ;  and 
these  hypostasized  sensations  are  affirmed  by  their  interac- 
tions to  determine  and  explain  the  belief  in  causation.  Thus 
it  is  plain  that  empiricism  undermines  causation  only  by 


ACTION  AND   INTERACTION.  H9 

causation  itself.  Unspeakable  advantage  cannot  fail  to  re- 
sult to  philosophy  from  such  unspeakable  insight. 

This  inconsistency  of  empiricism  is  patent  in  all  its  theo- 
ries of  mind.  It  is  one  of  the  wonders  of  philosophy  that 
no  speculators  have  been  such  thorough  determinists  in 
mind  as  the  empiricists,  while  their  own  theory  expressly 
excludes  all  determination.  They  account  for  and  explain 
everything  in  the  mind  by  its  circumstances,  and  are  will- 
ing to  leave  nothing  unexplained.  When  it  comes  to  free- 
dom they  are,  as  a  rule,  the  most  pronounced  determinists. 
The  law  of  causation  is  constantly  invoked  to  crush  out  the 
belief,  and  the  law  itself  is  exaggerated  into  pure  fatalism. 
It  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  speculation  that  a  school  which 
in  the  physical  realm  denies  all  necessity,  all  universal  truth, 
and  all  determination,  should,  when  the  question  of  freedom 
comes  up,  become  the  strictest  necessitarians.  Upon  their 
principles  freedom  is  antecedently  no  more  improbable  than 
necessity ;  uniformity  is  no  more  probable  than  non-uni- 
formity. Which  is  true,  or  whether  both  may  be  true  in 
different  realms,  is  a  question  which  the  empiricist,  of  all 
men,  should  leave  to  experience ;  whereas  he,  of  all  men, 
is  the  first  to  settle  the  question  by  an  apriori  intuition. 
But  empiricism  is  the  chameleon  of  philosophy,  and  lives 
only  on  condition  of  being  allowed  to  change  its  color  to 
suit  the  emergency.  Finally,  we  may  say  that,  apart  from 
any  question  of  the  reality  of  interaction,  it  is  still  an  inter- 
esting speculative  problem  to  determine  its  conditions  when 
assumed  as  possible.  The  reality  may  safely  be  allowed  to- 
secure  its  own  recognition.  Inconsistent  empiricism  deserves 
no  attention ;  and  consistent  empiricism,  which  denies  all  de- 
termination of  any  sort,  may  be  left  to  itself. 

The  last  view  mentioned  was  the  pre-established  harmony 
of  Leibnitz.  In  a  previous  paragraph  it  has  been  pointed  out 
that  interaction  must  reconcile  individuality  with  communi- 
ty of  being.  Things  which  are  to  act  upon  one  another 
cannot  have  the  ground  of  their  being  entirely  in  themselves, 


120  METAPHYSICS. 

but  only  in  the  system  as  a  whole.  It  will  not  avail  to  say 
that  they  have  their  being  in  themselves,  and  the  ground  of 
their  activity  in  the  system ;  for  we  have  seen  that  being  is 
implicated  in  activity.  The  being  is  the  agent  which  acts 
in  this  or  that  definite  way ;  and  to  be  this  agent,  that  is  to 
be  itself,  it  needs  the  co-operation  of  other  things.  Leibnitz's 
view  is  based  upon  the  extremest  assertion  of  individuality. 
Whereas  the  occasionalists  found  a  difficulty  only  in  conceiv- 
ing the  interaction  of  soul  and  body,  Leibnitz  denied  the 
possibility  of  interaction  between  any  two  individuals,  no 
matter  how  much  alike  in  kind.  The  gulf  of  individuality 
cannot  be  crossed  at  all.  For,  he  says,  the  monads  have  no 
windows  through  which  they  can  receive  or  emit  anything. 
Each  one  exists,  therefore,  in  absolute  self-suificiency,  receiv- 
ing nothing  and  giving  nothing,  neither  acting  nor  acted 
upon.  Each  monad  has  the  ground  of  all  its  unfolding  in 
itself ;  and  it  unfolds  by  its  own  inner  law.  Of  course,  the 
first  question  is,  How  can  there  be  any  system  with  such  a 
lot  of  independent  and  mutually  indifferent  elements? 
Leibnitz  replies,  that  all  the  monads  were  created,  and  the 
properties  of  each  were  determined  with  reference  to  those 
of  all  the  rest ;  and  the  properties  of  all  were  determined 
with  reference  to  the  end  of  the  system.  The  plan  of  the 
architect  contains  the  ground  of  the  form>and  position  of 
every  part  of  a  building;  so  also  the  plan  of  the  universe 
contains  the  reason  why  anything  is,  what  and  where  and 
when  it  is.  Each  thing,  then,  logically  determines  every 
other  in  the  thought  or  plan  of  the  system ;  but  in  the  real 
system  there  is  no  dynamic  connection  of  any  sort.  Each 
tiling  exists  by  itself.  But  this  logical  determination  of 
each  for  each  and  for  the  whole  is  not  merely  momentary, 
but  reaches  throughout  the  entire  history  of  the  monads. 
They  agree  perfectly  at  the  beginning ;  and  the  rate  of  de- 
velopment is  so  determined  that  they  agree  perfectly  forever. 
The  state  of  each  at  any  moment  is  just  what  the  state  of 
the  whole  demands.  They  keep  absolute  time.  Leibnitz 


ACTION  AND  IHTEBACTION.  121 

calls  this  the  pre-established  harmony ;  and  illustrates  it  by 
two  clocks  which  are  so  adjusted  that  they  run  togeth- 
er, though  mutually  independent.  Hence,  interaction  is 
only  in  appearance.  That  which  seems  such  is,  in  fact,  only 
the  spontaneous  unfolding  of  the  monads.  Again,  the  sys- 
tem, as  such,  exists  only  in  thought.  The  reality  is  a  multi- 
tude of  independent  things,  each  existing  in  a  hard  self- 
identity,  and  unaffected  by  all  the  world  beside.  There  is 
properly  no  system.  But  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  one 
point  of  interaction. 

This  view  is  commonly  regarded  as  antiquated,  and  even 
obsolete ;  nevertheless,  in  principle,  it  underlies  much  of  our 
speculation,  especially  our  theories  of  perception.  We  have 
already  pointed  out  that  the  physicist's  theory  of  interaction 
reduces  to  this  view,  with  the  exception  of  the  pre-estab- 
lishment,  as  soon  as  we  admit  that  transient  forces  are  only 
abstractions.  The  atoms  are  viewed  as  sown  in  space,  each 
shut  off  from  all  the  rest  by  a  void,  across  which  nothing 
passes,  and  yet  each  incessantly  adjusts  itself  to  all  the  rest 
by  virtue  of  an  opaque  harmony  between  them.  So,  all 
those  theories  which  explain  interaction  as  the  result  of  a 
law  or  a  world-order  reduce  to  this  view,  as  soon  as  they  are 
made  intelligible.  In  fact,  every  theory  which  makes  finite 
individuality  absolute,  or  which  views  the  finite  as  having 
its  ground  of  being  in  itself,  is  shut  up  to  this  view.  In  all 
such  systems  there  can  be  only  correspondence,  not  interac- 
tion. Nevertheless,  Leibnitz's  view,  when  taken  absolutely, 
is  beset  with  the  gravest  difficulties.  Like  occasionalism,  it 
leads  at  once  to  the  extremest  idealism,  or,  rather,  to  solitary 
egoism ;  for,  on  this  theory,  the  perceiving  monad  is  deter- 
mined entirely  from  within,  and,  hence,  the  cause  of  our 
perceptions  is  never  anything  external.  Thus,  the  outer 
world  appears  as  needless  to  account  for  our  perceptions,  and 
even  for  our  sensations.  It  is,  then,  plainly  gratuitous  to 
affirm  any  outer  world,  or  any  persons  other  than  ourselves. 
Leibnitz  appears  never  to  have  seen  that  his  extreme  indi- 


122  METAPHYSICS. 

vidualism  makes  both  God  and  the  world  superfluous.  He 
obtained  his  problem  only  by  trusting  the  common-sense  of 
mankind,  and  he  retained  it  only  by  reserving  it  from  the 
logical  consequences  of  his  own  theory.  If  we  take  his  the- 
ory in  earnest,  it  leads  immediately  to  the  extremest  ideal- 
istic egoism,  and  cancels  itself.  One  cannot  be  a  Leibnitz- 
ian  without  trust  in  perception ;  and  one  cannot  remain  a 
Leibnitzian  and  trust  in  perception. 

Leibnitz,  however,  never  meant  his  view  to  be  pushed  to 
such  an  extreme.  He  even  claimed  to  find  in  it  a  demon- 
stration of  God's  existence.  Moreover,  he  himself  was  far 
from  faithful  to  his  own  theory  when  he  came  to  treat  of 
body,  and  especially  of  organisms.  As  the  monads  are  the 
sole  realities,  we  must  view  all  combination  as  phenomenal, 
and  as  existing  only  for  the  perceiving  mind.  Hence,  bod- 
ies and  organisms  do  not  properly  exist ;  they  are  only  modes 
of  appearance ;  or,  rather,  they  are  thoughts  generated  by 
our  own  minds,  without  anything  corresponding  to  them  in 
the  outer  world.  Still,  the  appearance  of  unity  in  such  cases 
is  so  marked  that  Leibnitz  did  not  venture  to  make  it  only 
phenomenal,  but  posited  in  organisms,  and  even  in  crystals, 
a  governing  monad,  which  is  the  unity  of  the  whole ;  but, 
in  so  doing,  he  relaxes  the  integrity  of  his  principle,  and 
admits  an  interaction  among  the  monads.  But  the  great 
difficulty  of  the  system  is  its  fatalism,  and  the  consequent 
overthrow  of  knowledge.  To  maintain  the  harmony,  ev- 
erything must  be  fixed.  To  be  sure,  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
such  a  system  could  fall  into  disharmony  in  any  case.  As 
each  monad  is  self-centred,  and  contains  the  ground  of  its 
unfolding  entirely  in  itself,  collision  between  the  monads 
would  be  strictly  impossible.  If  discord  appeared  at  all,  it 
would  be  only  to  the  divine  mind,  which  would  see  the 
monads  departing  from  the  demands  of  the  system.  But  it 
is  plain  that  the  theory,  such  as  it  is,  is  purely  deterministic. 
Possibly  some  believer  in  freedom  may  think  to  exclude  this 
element  by  bringing  in  the  divine  foreknowledge,  which 


ACTION   AND   INTERACTION.  1£3 

should  adapt  the  universe  to  human  thought  and  volition. 
But  when  \ve  remember  the  conflicting  thoughts  and  voli- 
tions, this  would  lead  to  contradiction  and  impossibility. 
Leibnitz  himself  held  determinism  to  be  a  necessary  factor 
of  the  system,  and  excluded  all  proper  freedom.  It  is  a 
striking  illustration  of  the  blinding  influence  of  speculation, 
that  one  who  had  moral  and  religious  interests  so  much  at 
heart  as  Leibnitz  should  have  failed  to  see  the  bearings  of 
his  theory  on  both. 

From  a  speculative  standpoint,  it  is  stranger  still  that  he 
should  have  failed  to  see  the  bearings  of  his  view  on  the 
problem  of  knowledge.  In  such  a  system,  we  should  ex- 
pect the  most  exact  and  consistent  knowledge.  Since 
each  monad  is  expressly  harmonized  with  all  the  rest, 
and  has  the  duty  of  mirroring  the  entire  universe,  one 
would  look  for  absolute  and  harmonious  knowledge.  But 
we  have  no  such  knowledge.  Error  is  a  fact.  For  ev- 
ery sound  opinion,  the  monads  have  produced  a  myriad 
unsound  and  grotesque,  ones.  Our  theories  and  views  of 
reality  are  not  harmonious  with  one  another,  and  are  rarely 
self-consistent.  What  are  we  to  make  of  this  fact  on  this 
theory  ?  Objective  error  is  a  misconception  of  reality,  and 
this,  by  hypothesis,  is  excluded.  Nor  can  we  trace  it  to  a 
careless  use  of  our  faculties,  for  all  self-determination  is  ex- 
cluded. If  we  were  free  persons,  with  faculties  which  we 
might  carelessly  use  or  wilfully  misuse,  the  fact  might  be 
explained  ;  but  the  pre-established  harmony  excludes  this 
supposition.  And  since  our  faculties  lead  us  into  error, 
when  shall  we  trust  them  ?  "Which  of  the  many  opinions 
they  have  produced  is  really  true  ?  By  hypothesis,  they  all 
ought  to  be  true,  but,  as  they  contradict  one  another,  all 
cannot  be  true.  How,  then,  distinguish  between  the  true 
and  the  false?  By  taking  a  vote ?  That  cannot  be,  for,  as 
determined,  we  have  not  the  power  to  take  a  vote.  Shall 
we  reach  the  truth  by  reasoning?  This  we  might  do,  if 
reasoning  were  a  self-poised,  self-verifying  process ;  but  this 


12±  METAPHYSICS. 

it  cannot  be  in  a  deterministic  system.  Eeasoning  implies 
the  power  to  control  one's  thoughts,  to  resist  the  processes 
of  association,  to  suspend  judgment  until  the  transparent 
order  of  reason  has  been  reached.  It  implies  freedom, 
therefore.  In  a  mind  which  is  controlled  by  its  states,  in- 
stead of  controlling  them,  there  is  no.  reasoning,  but  only  a 
succession  of  one  state  upon  another.  There  is  no  deduc- 
tion from  grounds,  but  only  production  by  causes.  No  be- 
lief has  any  logical  advantage  over  any  other,  for  logic  is  no 
longer  possible.  And  this  is  the  case  in  Leibnitz'*  system. 
There  is  a  succession  of  mental  states  with  which  we  cannot 
interfere.  We  are  determined  to  one  belief  as  absolutely  as 
to  another.  Truth  and  error  are  alike  necessary,  and  there 
is  no  standard  for  distinguishing  between  them,  and  no  pow- 
er to  use  such  a  standard,  if  we  had  it.  Thus  knowledge  is 
overturned,  and  science  and  philosophy  are  made  impossi- 
ble. No  theory  can  be  allowed  which  leads  to  such  results. 
Philosophy  must  not  commit  suicide,  unless  forced  to  it. 
We  reject,  therefore,  the  theory  of  pre-established  harmony, 
as  Leibnitz  held  it,  as  incompatible  with  both  science  and 
philosophy.  Finally,  it  fails  to  exclude  the  problem  with 
which  we  are  dealing,  for  it  is  forced  to  assume,  at  least,  an 
interaction  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite.  At  best,  it 
only  removes  it  from  one  to  the  other.  Leibnitz  was  great- 
ly influenced  by  the  deistic  speculation  of  his  time ;  still,  he 
would  never  have  dreamed  of  making  the  finite  independent 
of  the  infinite. 

But  while  the  doctrine  of  a  pre-established  harmony,  as 
Leibnitz  held  it,  must  be  rejected,  certain  features  of  the 
doctrine  must  be  retained  in  every  theory  of  interaction. 
We  have  seen  that  the  action  of  a  thing  is  never  something 
imparted  to  it  from  without,  but  is  always  and  only  a  man- 
ifestation of  the  thing's  own  nature.  All  that  the  action  of 
other  things  does  is  to  supply  the  conditions  of  this  mani- 
festation, or  to  determine  which  of  many  possible  manifes- 
tations shall  take  place.  But,  if  there  is  to  be  any  law  and 


ACTION  AND  INTERACTION.  125 

order  in  such  a  system,  so  that  definite  antecedents  shall  al- 
ways have  the  same  definite  consequents,  there  must  be  an 
exact  adjustment  or  correspondence  of  each  of  the  interact- 
ing members  to  all  the  rest.  Otherwise,  anything  might  be 
followed  by  everything,  or  by  nothing.  The  whole  system 
of  law  upon  which  science  builds  is  but  the  expression  of 
this  metaphysical  adjustment  or  correspondence.  How  this 
correspondence  is  to  be  secured  is  the  problem  which  con- 
cerns us;  but,  at  all  events,  it  must  be  affirmed  as  a  postu- 
late of  all  objective  science.  Every  scientific  conception  of 
interaction  assumes  that  similar  causes  must  have  similar 
effects,  and  that  there  is  some  fixed  quantitative  relation  be- 
tween the  action  and  the  effect.  Under  given  conditions, 
there  can  be  only  one  result.  To  any  given  action,  ev- 
ery other  element  must  correspond  with  a  given  reaction. 
But  if  this  is  to  be  the  case,  then  everything  must  be  ad- 
justed to  every  other  in  an  absolute  and  all-embracing  har- 
mony. We  object,  then,  to  Leibnitz,  not  that  he  teaches  a 
pre-established  harmony,  but  that  he  conceives  it  as  he  does. 
By  making  the  elements  mutually  independent,  he  falls  into 
the  difficulties  mentioned.  When  this  error  is  avoided,  and 
the  doctrine  is  understood  to  mean  only  universal  adjust- 
ment and  correspondence,  then  it  is  a  necessity  of  every 
system. 

All  attempts  to  escape  the  notion  of  interaction  fail.  The 
question  recurs,  How  is  interaction  between  two  or  more 
things,  conceived  as  independent,  possible  ?  The  explana- 
tions given  thus  far  are  failures.  The  interaction  must  be 
declared  impossible  so  long  as  the  things  are  viewed  as  in- 
dependent. By  definition,  the  independent  must  contain 
the  ground  of  all  its  determinations  in  itself,  and,  by  anal- 
ysis, that  which  is  subject  to  the  necessity  of  interaction 
must  have  the  grounds  of  its  determinations  in  others  as 
well  as  in  itself.  The  two  conceptions  will  not  combine. 
Every  attempt  to  bridge  the  chasm  between  independent 


126  METAPHYSICS. 

things  by  some  passage  of  forces,  influences,  etc.,  results  in 
a  purely  verbal  explanation,  which  it  is  impossible  to  think 
through.  Neither  coexistence  nor  contiguity  in  space  throws 
any  light  upon  interaction ;  and,  since  interaction  must  be 
affirmed,  the  only  way  out  is  to  deny  the  independence  of 
the  plurality,  and  reduce  it  to  a  constant  dependence,  in 
some  way,  upon  one  all-embracing  being,  which  is  the  unity 
of  the  many,  and  in  whose  unity  an  interacting  plurality 
first  becomes  possible.  An  interacting  many  cannot  exist 

Pwithout  a  co-ordinating  one.  The  interaction  of  our 
thoughts,  and  other  mental  states,  is  possible  only  through 
the  unity  of  the  mental  subject  which  brings  all  its  states 
together  in  the  unity  of  one  consciousness.  So  the  interac- 
tions of  the  universe  are  possible  only  through  the  unity  of 
a  basal  reality,  which  brings  them  together  in  its  one  imma- 

jient  omnipresence.  And  this  we  affirm,  not  at  all  because 
of  the  mystery  of  interaction  between  independent  things, 
but  because  of  its  contradiction.  The  simple  analysis  of  the 
notions  of  interaction  and  independence  shows  them  to  be 
incompatible.  Whichever  we  retain,  the  other  must  be  giv- 
en up.  And,  as  the  notion  of  interaction  is  essential  to  the 
notion  of  a  system,  we  give  up  the  independence  of  the  in- 
teracting members. 

But,  if  we  deny  their  independence,  what  need  is  there 
for  going  outside  of  them  for  something  else  on  which  they 
depend?  Why  not  make  them  mutually  dependent,  so  that 
the  series  of  things,  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  shall  not  depend  on  Alpha, 
but  on  one  another?  In  this  way,  each  member  of  the  sys- 
tem would  exist  only  in  connection  with  the  other  members, 
but  the  system  itself  might  be  independent.  The  several 
things  would  constitute  an  arch,  or,  rather,  a  self-supporting 
circle,  and  thus  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  would  be  the  only  realities,  al- 
though they  would  mutually  condition  and  imply  one  an- 
other. This  objection  is  a  very  old  one.  It  was  current  in 
Aristotle's  time,  and  is  considered  at  length  by  him.  One 
manifest  objection  is,  that  it  seeks  to  make  an  independent 


ACTION  AND   INTERACTION.  127 

out  of  a  sum  of  dependents.  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  are  severally  de- 
pendent, but  A  +  B  +  C-f  etc.,  is  independent.  But  if  A, 
B,  C,  etc.,  are  distinct  ontological  units,  this  is  absurd. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  sign  of  addition  which  is  able  to 
transform  a  dependent  thing  into  an  independent.  There 
must  be  some  bond  underlying  that  sign,  and  that  bond  is 
interaction.  When  two  mathematical  quantities  are  found 
to  vary  together,  one  must  be  made  a  function  of  the  other, 
or  both  must  be  made  a  function  of  a  third  quantity,  com- 
mon to  each.  "When  a  series  of  things  vary  together,  it  is 
equally  impossible  to  regard  them  as  absolute  units.  Some 
one  thing  must  be  independent,  and  all  the  rest  must  be,  in 
some  sense,  functions  of  that  one.  As  interacting,  a  state 
of  each  must  imply  a  certain  state  of  all ;  and  this  is  impos- 
sible, so  long  as  there  is  not  some  being  common  to  all.  "We 
conclude,  then,  that  the  whole  can  never  be  reached  by  sum- 
ming the  parts,  but  that  the  parts  must  be  viewed  as  phases 
of  the  whole.  This  view  may  be  illustrated  by  the  rheto- 
rician's conception  of  the  doctrine  of  force  or  energy.  Ac- 
cording to  this,  there  is  one  force,  but  various  in  mode  and 
manifestation.  These  various  modes,  however,  are  nothing 
independent  and  individual,  but  are  only  phases  of  the  one 
energy  which  underlies  them  and  exists  in  them.  The  one 
force  is  not  to  be  understood  by  summing  up  the  various 
conditioned  manifestations,  but  these  are  to  be  understood 
as  outcomes  of  the  one  force.  The  self-centred  fact — the 
true  existence — is  the  one  force,  and  not  its  passing  phases. 
This  misconception  of  a  physical  doctrine  illustrates  our 
view.  The  impossibility  of  producing  an  independent  be- 
ing by  summing  up  dependent  parts  forces  us  to  deny  that 
A,  B,  C,  etc.,  are  the  only  realities,  and  that  the  indepen- 
dent reality  is  but  their  sum.  The  community  of  being 
which  their  interaction  posits  compels  us  to  deny  that  they 
are  ultimate  ontological  units.  If,  then,  we  are  not  content 
to  place  behind  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  a  being  distinct  from  them, 
which  co-ordinates  and  controls  them,  we  must,  at  all  events, 


128  METAPHYSICS. 

posit  in  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  a  being  common  to  all,  which  consti- 
tutes their  reality,  and  of  which  they  are  but  special  modes 
or  manifestations.  And  thus  we  come  back  to  the  view  of 
the  previous  paragraph.  Interaction  is  possible  in  a  mani- 
fold only  as  the  members  of  the  manifold  are  dependent 
upon  some  unitary  being,  which  either  co-ordinates  and  me- 
diates their  interactions,  or  of  which  they  are  but  phases  or 
v  modifications. 

Two  conceptions,  then,  of  this  dependence,  are  possible. 
We  may  regard  the  members  as  ontologically  distinct,  and 
as  brought  into  interaction  only  through  the  mediation  of 
the  basal  one,  which  posits  and  co-ordinates  them.  In  this 
view,  the  members  of  the  system  have  the  same  relation  as 
the  pieces  on  a  chess-board.  In  themselves  they  can  do 
nothing,  but  must  be  moved  by  the  player.  Their  interac- 
tion is  only  apparent,  and  is,  in  fact,  the  direct  action  of  the 
one  in  adjusting  them  to  the  demands  of  the  system.  This 
view  reduces  to  a  universal  occasionalism,  so  far  as  the  in- 
teraction of  the  finite  is  concerned.  The  one  is  incessantly 
adjusting  the  relations  of  the  many.  Most  writers  on  the- 
ism, who  have  transcended  deism,  hold  this  view  in  essence, 
although  they  would  hesitate  to  accept  the  name  of  occa- 
sionalists.  A  simple  inspection,  however,  shows  that  it  is 
only  the  Cartesian  occasionalism  made  universal.  But,  as 
pointed  out  in  speaking  of  the  latter  theory,  this  view  can- 
cels all  material  reality,  and  reduces  it  to  a  form  of  ener- 
gizing on  the  part  of  the  basal  one ;  for,  as  long  as  matter 
is  conceived  as  matter,  and  not  as  spirit,  it  has  no  subjective 
activity,  but  all  its  action  is  objective  and  external.  But  if 
this  objective  activity  be  the  act  of  something  not  matter, 
then  matter  has  no  longer  any  reason  for  existence,  for  that 
which  it  is  posited  to  perform  is  done  by  something  else. 
The  theistic  writers  in  question  commonly  speak  of  the  ob- 
jective activity  as  really  the  activity  of  the  tiling,  but  as 
"mediated"  by  the  infinite;  but  this  mediated  activity  turns 
out  to  be  the  activity  of  the  infinite,  and  not  of  the  thing. 


ACTION   AND   INTERACTION.  }29 

The  phrase  is  useful  only  in  concealing  the  fact.  Thus  this 
universal  occasionalism  leads  at  once  to  the  conclusion  that 
all  finite  reality,  as  distinct  from  the  fundamental  reality,  is 
of  a  spiritual  nature,  for  impersonal  dependent  being  does 
not  fill  out  the  notion  of  existence.  Owing  to  the  supersti- 
tion of  the  lump,  the  theistic  writers  in  question  would  be 
slow  to  admit  this  conclusion.  They  would  still  insist  that 
there  may  be  being  which  does  nothing  but  be.  B-ut,  for 
us,  this  is  an  "  overcome  standpoint." 

The  other  possible  conception  of  the  relation  of  the  one 
to  the  many  is,  that  finite  being  has  no  existence  or  individ- 
uality in  itself,  but  is  only  a  mode  or  phenomenon  of  some 
one  being  which  alone  truly  is.  In  our  thought,  these  modes 
assume  the  appearance  of  individual  things  in  interaction ; 
but,  in  fact,  there  is  nothing  but  the  one  true  being  and  its 
modes.  In  the  nature  of  this  being,  these  modes  are  mutu- 
ally determinative,  because  they  are  all  modes  of  the  one, 
and  because  the  same  being  is  present  in  all,  as  their  ground 
and  reality.  The  decision  between  these  two  views  can  be 
reached  only  as  we  find  in  the  realm  of  the  finite  some  be- 
ing endowed  with  the  wonderful  power  of  selfhood,  where- 
by it  is  enabled  to  become  an  individual,  and  to  know  itself 
as  such.  Thus  we  come  back  to  the  claim  of  the  last  chap- 
ter, that  there  is  no  certain  test  of  finite  individuality  ex- 
cept personality.  Apart  from  this,  all  finite  being  must  be 
viewed  as  simply  a  mode  of  the  basal  one,  and  without  any 
proper  existence.  As  dependent,  all  its  external  activities 
are  really  activities  of  the  one;  and,  as  impersonal,  it  is 
without  subjectivity.  There  is  nothing  left  but  to  regard 
it  as  a  form  of  energizing  on  the  part  of  the  one.  We  have 
abundantly  insisted,  elsewhere,  on  the  fact  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  being  which  simply  exists,  but  that  a  thing 
acquires  a  title  to  existence  only  as,  by  its  activity,  it  is  able 
to  assert  itself  as  a  determining  factor  in  reality. 

"VVe  began  this  chapter  with  the  common  notion  of  a  plu- 
rality of  independent  things.  These  seemed  to  us  then  to  be 
9 


130  METAPHYSICS. 

capable  of  independent  existence.  But  this  view  changed, 
under  criticism,  until,  at  last,  we  were  forced  to  abandon  it. 
No  pluralistic  theory  of  ultimate  being  is  tenable,  but  plu- 
ralism must  be  displaced  by  monism.  Of  course,  we  do 
not  fancy  that  this  view  settles  all  difficulties.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  leaves  the  mystery  of  being  and  action  as  dark  and 
impenetrable  as  ever.  The  only  claim  is,  that  this  view  is 
a  necessity  of  clear  thought.  The  analysis  of  the  notion  of 
interaction  leads  directly  to  it,  and,  without  admitting  it, 
the  notion  vanishes  into  contradiction.  If  the  interaction 
of  independent  things  were  simply  mysterious,  there  would 
be  no  reason  for  rejecting  it ;  but,  since  it  involves  contra- 
diction, we  must  declare  that  all  interaction  between  the 
many  is  really  an  immanent  action  in  the  one.  How  this 
action  takes  place,  whether  with  free  intelligence  or  with 
blind  necessity,  we  do  not  decide  at  present.  It  is  enough 
to  have  shown  that  the  ultimate  pluralism  of  spontaneous 
thought  must  be  exchanged  for  a  basal  monism.  And  the 
unity  thus  reached  is  not  the  unity  of  a  logical  universal, 
nor  of  any  ideal  classification  of  any  kind,  but  the  essential 
substantial  unity  of  a  being  which  alone  is  self-existent,  and 
in  which  all  things  have  their  being. 

Possibly  it  may  occur  to  us  that  the  same  argument 
which  we  have  used  is  equally  valid  to  disprove  any  inter- 
action of  the  finite  and  the  infinite.  We  have  all  along 
assumed  the  possibility  of  an  interaction  between  the  two ; 
and  yet  the  infinite  is  certainly  individual,  and  the  finite 
is  certainly  distinct  from  the  infinite.  Here,  then,  we  seem 
to  need  a  new  bond  to  connect  these  new  members,  and  so 
on  in  infinite  series.  The  reply  is  simple.  Our  argument 
has  been  based  on  the  assumed  independence  of  both  mem- 
bers of  the  interaction,  and  applies  only  to  that  assumption. 
When  two  things  are  mutually  independent,  interaction  can 
take  place  only  through  a  mediating  third,  which  embraces 
them  both.  But  the  independent  may  freely  posit  the  de- 
pendent, and  may  also  posit  a  continuous  interaction  between 


ACTION  AND  INTERACTION.  131 

itself  and  the  dependent ;  but  such  interaction  is  through- 
out a  self-determination,  and  is  not  forced  upon  it  from 
without. 

This  point  seems  too  obscure  for  any  influence ;  and  yet 
confusion  here  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  philosophy  of  the 
unconditioned.  In  particular,  Mansel  sought  to  show  that 
God  could  not  be  thought  of  as  cause,  because  as  cause  it 
must  be  related  to  its  effect.  He  cannot,  then,  be  creator, 
because  as  such  there  must  be  a  relation  between  God  and 
the  world.  But  this  objection  overlooks  the  fact  that  re- 
lation in  the  abstract  does  not  imply  dependence.  The 
criticism  would  be  just  if  the  relation  were  necessary  and 
had  an  external  origin.  But  as  the  relation  is  properly 
posited  and  maintained  by  himself,  there  is  nothing  in  it 
incompatible  with  his  independence  and  absoluteness. 

How  can  individuality  and  community  of  being  be  rec- 
onciled; or  how  can  individuals  unite  to  form  a  system? 
This  is  the  question  with  which  we  started  out.  The  an- 
swer is,  that  they  are  irreconcilable;  or  that  they  cannot 
form  a  system,  so  long  as  the  individuality  is  regarded  as 
absolute  or  independent.  Our  next  question  was,  How  is 
transcendent  action  possible  ?  The  answer  is,  that  it  is  pos- 
sible only  through  the  immanent  action  of  one  fundamental 
being.  This  being,  as  fundamental,  we  call  the  infinite,  the 
absolute,  and  the  independent.  In  calling  it  the  infinite,  we 
do  not  mean  that  it  excludes  the  coexistence  of  the  finite, 
but  only  that  it  is  the  self-sufficient  source  of  the  finite. 
In  calling  it  the  absolute,  we  do  not  exclude  it  from  all  re- 
lation, but  deny  only  external  restriction  and  determination. 
Everything  else  has  its  cause  and  reason  in  this  being. 
Whatever  is  true,  or  rational,  or  real  in  the  universe,  must 
be  traced  to  this  being  as  its  source  and  determining  origin. 
But  this  point  we  reserve  for  future  discussion. 


132  METAPHYSICS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  FINITE  AND  THE  INFINITE. 

IN  the  previous  chapter  we  have  reached  the  conclusion 
that  all  things  depend  in  some  way  upon  one  basal  being 
\vhich  alone  is  self -existent.  But  this  conclusion  raises 
many  questions  and  not  a  few  difficulties.  In  particular, 
the  relation  of  the  finite  to  the  infinite  demands  further 
consideration.  Thus  far  we  have  determined  it  only  as  a 
relation  of  dependence,  without  seeking  further  to  specify 
the  nature  or  form  of  this  dependence.  To  reach  a  more 
definite  thought  of  this  relation  is  one  aim  of  this  chapter. 
Again,  the  conclusion  that  all  plurality  is  founded  and 
grounded  in  a  basal  unity  contains  some  highly  important 
speculative  consequences,  which  need  to  be  unfolded.  The 
nature  of  the  absolute  being  we  reserve  for  future  discus- 
sion, and  seek  to  determine  its  significance  for  the  system 
by  virtue  of  its  position  as  basal  and  infinite.  We  may 
think  of  this  being  as  an  intelligent  agent  determining  its 
course  according  to  plan  and  purpose ;  and  we  may  think 
of  it  as  a  blind  substance,  unfolding  by  an  inner  necessity. 
In  the  former  case,  the  system  would  be  a  free  act  of  the 
infinite ;  in  the  latter,  it  would  be  a  necessary  consequence 
of  the  nature  of  the  infinite.  The  former  view  would  be 
theism ;  the  latter  would  be  pantheism.  In  the  next  chap- 
ter we  shall  seek  to  decide  between  the  two  conceptions. 
But,  in  either  case,  the  infinite  must  be  viewed  as  the  sole 
and  determining  ground  of  the  system  of  things.  It  is  the 
source  of  all  law,  of  all  manifestation,  and  of  all  movement 


THE   FINITE  AND  THE   INFINITE.  133 

in  the  system.  The  consequences  of  this  principle  can  be 
discussed  without  in  any  way  taking  sides  on  the  theistic 
question.  We  have,  then,  two  problems  for  discussion :  (1) 
the  relation  of  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  and  (2)  the  relation 
of  the  infinite  to  the  finite.  And  here,  as  usual,  we  start 
from  the  common  assumption  that  finite  things  are  real.  If 
we  modify  this  view,  it  will  be  only  as  criticism  compels  it. 

The  discussions  of  the  first  chapter  have  freed  us  from 
the  superstition  of  passive  substance  or  pure  being.  We 
there  found  that  the  notion  of  substance  is  entirely  ex- 
hausted in  the  notion  of  cause,  and  that  agents  only  can  lay 
any  claim  to  existence.  The  infinite,  then,  is  not  to  be 
viewed  as  a  passive  substance,  but  as  a  unitary  and  indivis- 
ible agent.  Indeed,  the  misleading  connotations  of  the  no- 
tion of  substance  are  such  that  we  shall  do  better  to  drop 
it  altogether,  and  replace  it  by  cause,  or  agent.  "We  are 
compelled  to  do  this  by  critical  reflection ;  and  the  advan- 
tages are  great.  The  notion  of  substance  carries  with  it 
many  implications  of  the  imagination  ;  and  these  are  peren- 
nial sources  of  error.  It  is  largely  conceived  as  a  plastic 
something,  or  as  a  kind  of  stuff  which  can  be  fashioned  into 
many  things.  These  implications,  rude  and  crude  as  they 
are,  have  modified  disastrously  most  pantheistic  speculation. 
The  infinite  has  been  viewed  almost  as  a  kind  of  raw  ma- 
terial out  of  which  the  finite  is  made,  and  hence  is  at  least 
partly  exhausted  in  the  finite.  Sometimes  the  represen- 
tation is  less  coarse ;  and  the  infinite  appears  as  a  kind  of 
background  of  the  finite,  something  as  space  appears  as  the 
infinite  background  and  possibility  of  all  finite  figures  in  it. 
The  infinite  is  further  said  to  produce,  or  emit,  the  finite 
from  itself ;  or  by  a  process  of  self-diremption,  to  pass  from 
its  own  unity  into  the  plurality  of  finite  things.  It  is  the 
pure  being  which  appears  in  all  things  as  the  reality  of 
their  existence. 

The  finite,  on  the  other  hand,  is  spoken  of  as  parts  or 
modifications  of  the  infinite,  or  as  emanations  from  the  in- 


134:  METAPHYSICS. 

finite,  or  as  partaking  of  the  infinite  substance.  Many  pan- 
theistic speculators  have  spoken  of  God  as  making  the  world 
out  of  himself.  Others,  again,  have  found  the  world  in  God 
prior  to  creation ;  and  creation  they  view  as  the  escape  of 
these  hidden  potentialities  into  realization.  Both  alike  have 
applied  the  notion  of  quantity  to  the  problem,  and  have 
greatly  exercised  themselves  with  the  inquiry  whether  God 
before  creation  be  not  equal  to  God  plus  the  world  after 
creation.  This  entire  class  of  views  rests  mainly  upon  a 
false  and  uncritical  notion  of  substance  which  identifies  it 
with  pure  being  or  stuff;  and  they  appear  at  once  in  their 
crudity  and  untenability  when  the  stuff-idea  is  exploded. 
There  is  no  stuff  in  being.  The  infinite  substance  means 
the  infinite  agent,  one  and  indivisible.  To  explain  the  uni- 
verse we  need  not  a  substance  but  an  agent,  not  substantial- 
ity but  causality.  The  latter  notion  expresses  the  meaning 
of  the  former,  and  is,  besides,  free  from  sense-implications. 

This  necessity  of  viewing  all  true  existence  as  causal  and 
unitary  cancels  at  once  a  host  of  doctrines  which  have 
swarmed  in  pantheistic  speculation.  When  we  speak  of 
the  infinite  as  substance,  the  misleading  analogies  of  sense- 
experience  at  once  present  it  as  admitting  of  division,  ag- 
gregation, etc. ;  but  when  we  think  of  it  as  an  agent,  these 
fancies  disappear  of  themselves.  As  an  agent,  it  is  a  unit, 
and  not  a  sum  or  an  aggregate.  It  is,  then,  without  parts ; 
and  the  notions  of  divisibility  and  aggregation  do  not  ap- 
ply. Hence  we  cannot  view  the  finite  as  a  part  of  the  in- 
finite, or  as  an  emanation  from  the  infinite,  or  as  partaking 
of  the  infinite  substance;  for  all  these  expressions  imply 
the  divisibility  of  the  infinite,  and  also  its  stuffy  nature. 
No  more  can  the  finite  be  viewed  as  produced  by  any  self- 
diremption  of  the  infinite ;  for  this  too  would  be  incompat- 
ible with  its  necessary  unity.  All  of  these  views  really 
deny  the  infinite  and  replace  it  by  an  aggregate.  The  one 
divides  itself  into  the  many,  and  thereafter  is  only  the  sum 
of  the  many.  But  thereby  the  one  disappears,  and  the  many 


THE  FINITE   AND   THE  INFINITE.  135 

alone  exist.  The  difficulty  is  double.  First,  the  notion  of 
division  has  no  application  to  true  being,  but  only  to  aggre- 
gates ;  and  second,  if  it  had  application,  the  result  of  divid- 
ing the  infinite  would  be  to  cancel  it,  and  replace  it  by  the 
sum  of  the  finite.  But  this  would  be  to  return  to  the  im- 
possible pluralism  of  uncritical  speculation.  The  attempt 
to  divide  and  retain  the  unity  at  the  same  time,  is  as  if  one 
should  speak  of  the  mathematical  unit  as  producing  num- 
ber by  self-diremption,  and  as  remaining  a  unit  after  divis- 
ion. The  necessary  unity  of  the  infinite  forbids  all  attempts 
to  identify  it  with  the  finite,  either  totally  or  partially.  If 
the  finite  be  anything  real,  it  must  be  viewed  as  substantially 
distinct  from  the  infinite,  not  as  produced  from  it,  but  as 
created  by  it.  Only  creation  can  reconcile  the  reality  of 
the  finite  with  the  unity  of  the  infinite.  For  the  finite,  if 
real,  is  an  agent ;  and  as  such  cannot  be  made  out  of  any- 
thing, but  is  posited  by  the  infinite.  How  this  can  be,  we 
do  not  pretend" to  know ;  but  any  other  view  is  wrecked  by 
its  own  contradictions. 

Similar  objections  lie  against  all  views  which  speak  of 
the  finite  as  a  mode  of  the  infinite.  We  have  ourselves 
used  this  expression ;  and  it  is  all  the  more  necessary  to 
define  its  meaning.  In  its  ordinary  use,  it  is  based  on  the 
notion  of  passive  substance,  or  pure  being.  Being  is  said 
to  be  one  in  essence,  but  various  in  mode ;  as  the  same  raw 
material  may  be  built  into  many  forms.  Accordingly  all 
finite  things  are  called  modes,  or  modifications  of  the  infi- 
nite. But  it  is  hard  to  interpret  this  language  so  as  to  es- 
cape the  absurdity  of  pure  being  and  remain  in  harmony 
with  the  necessary  unity  of  the  infinite.  The  notion  gen- 
erally joined  with  such  language  is,  that  each  thing  is  a  par- 
ticular and  separate  part  of  the  infinite ;  just  as  each  wave 
of  the  sea  is  not  a  phase  or  mode  of  the  entire  sea,  but  only 
of  that  part  comprised  in  the  wave  itself.  But  in  speaking 
of  the  unity  of  being,  it  was  pointed  out  that  this  unity  is 
compatible  with  a  plurality  of  attributes  only  as  each  attri- 


136  METAPHYSICS. 

bute  is  an  attribute  of  the  entire  thing.  Any  conception 
of  diverse  states  which  are  states  of  only  a  part  of  the  be- 
ing would  destroy  its  unity.  The  entire  being  must  be 
present  in  each  state ;  and  this  cannot  be  so  long  as  the 
notion  of  quantity  is  applied  to  the  problem.  Hence  in 
speaking  of  finite  things  as  modes  of  the  infinite,  we  must 
not  figure  the  relation  as  that  of  the  sea  to  its  waves,  or  as 
that  of  material  to  the  form  impressed  upon  it.  If,  then, 
finite  things  are  modes  of  the  infinite,  each  thing  must  be  a 
mode  of  the  entire  infinite ;  and  the  infinite  must  be  present 
in  its  unity  and  completeness  in  every  finite  thing,  just  as 
the  entire  soul  is  present  in  all  its  acts.  Any  other  view  of 
the  modes  would  cancel  the  unity  of  the  infinite,  and  leave 
the  modes  as  things  in  interaction.  The  infinite,  then,  can- 
not be  viewed  as  a  sum  of  modes,  nor  as  partly  in  one  mode 
and  partly  in  another;  but  it  must  be  present  alike  in  each 
and  every  mode.  Neither  can  the  modes  be  viewed  as 
forms  or  moulds  into  which  the  infinite  substance  is  poured. 
Even  this  gross  conception  has  not  been  without  influence 
in  the  history  of  speculation  ;  but  it  needs  no  criticism.  In 
general,  the  phrase,  modes  of  being,  is  misleading.  It  is 
allied  with  the  imagination  ;  and  the  mind  always  seeks  to 
picture  it.  Just  as  we  tend  to  conceive  substance  as  a  kind 
of  raw  material  out  of  which  things  are  made,  so  we  tend 
to  think  of  a  mode  as  a  mould  into  which  the  raw  material 
is  cast.  Of  course,  the  attempt  to  picture  instead  of  to 
think  results  in  absurdity.  The  view  that  being  is  cause 
cancels  these  misconceptions.  Indeed,  no  other  view  can 
meet  the  demands  made  on  the  modes.  The  only  way  iiT\ 
which  a  being  can  be  conceived  as  entire  in  every  mode  \ 
is  by  dropping  all  quantitative  conceptions,  and  viewing  the  1 
being  as  an  agent,  and  the  modes  as  forms  of  its  activity.  I 
Hence  the  doctrine  that  things  are  modes  of  the  infinite  can 
only  mean  that  things  are  but  constant  forms  of  activity  on 
the  part  of  the  infinite;  and  that  their  thinghood  is  purely 
phenomenal.  Of  course,  it  is  impossible  to  tell  how  the 


THE  FINITE  AND  THE   INFINITE.  137 

one  can  act  in  various  ways  so  as  to  produce  the  appear- 
ance of  a  world  of  different  and  interacting  things;  but 
this  is  only  the  impossibility  of  telling  how  there  can  be 
unity  in  variety,  and,  conversely,  how  there  can  be  variety 
in  unity. 

We  reach,  then,  the  following  conclusion  :  The  infinite  is 
not  a  passive  substance,  but  the  basal  cause  of  the  universe. 
As  such,  it  is  one  and  indivisible,  and  is  forever  equal  to  it- 
self. Of  the  finite,  two  conceptions  are  logically  possible. 
We  may  view  it  merely  as  a  form  of  energizing  on  the  part  of 
the  infinite,  so  that  it  has  a  purely  phenomenal  existence; 
or  we  may  view  it  as  a  substantial  creation  by  the  infinite. 
But  in  no  case  is  it  possible  to  identify  the  infinite  with  the 
finite,  either  totally  or  partially.  The  decision  between 
these  two  views,  as  before  pointed  out,  can  be  reached  only 
by  studying  the  nature  of  the  finite.  If  any  finite  thing 
can  be  -l^nneQ  which  is  capable  of  acting  from  itself,  it  has 
in  that  fact  the  only  possible  test  of  reality  as  distinguished 
from  phenomenality.  But  this  possibility  can  be  found 
only  in  conscious  agents.  Only  in  selfhood  do  we  find  any 
proper  activity  and  individuality  in  the  finite.  It  avails 
nothing  against  this  conclusion  to  say  that  the  infinite  may 
posit  impersonal  agents  as  well  as  personal  ones;  for  the 
notion  of  an  impersonal  finite  agent  vanishes  upon  analysis. 
As  impersonal,  it  would  have  no  subjective  activit}7 ;  and  as 
dependent,  it  has  no  objective  activity.  Thus  the  notion 
vanishes  into  zero.  We  must  say,  then,  that  only  selfhood 
suffices  to  mark  off  the  finite  from  the  infinite ;  and  that 
only  the  finite  spirit  attains  to  substantial  otherness  to  the 
infinite.  Apart  from  this,  there  is  nothing  but  the  infinite 
and  its  manifold  activities.  The  impersonal  finite  attains 
only  to  such  otherness  as  an  act  or  thought  has  to  its  subject. 
Finally,  the  spirit  must  be  viewed  as  created.  It  is  notV 
made,  for  making  implies  pre-existent  stuff.  But  creation  I 
means  to  posit  something  in  existence  which  before  was  not,  / 
and  to  do  it  so  that  the  creator  is  no  less  after  the  act  than  / 


138  METAPHYSICS. 

before.     This  is  all  that  creation  means;  and  to  this  we  are 
forced  by  the  contradiction  of  any  other  view. 

Such  is  the  relation  of  the  finite  to  the  infinite ;  it  re- 
mains to  consider  the  relation  of  the  infinite  to  the  finite. 
By  virtue  of  its  position,  the  infinite  must  be  viewed  as  the 
source  of  all  outgo  and  manifestation.  Since  the  finite  has 
no  ground  of  being  in  itself,  its  nature  and  relations  must 
be  determined  by  the  infinite ;  and  hence  the  finite  can  be 
properly  understood  or  comprehended  only  from  the  side  of 
the  infinite.  The  finite  may  be  viewed  as  the  outcome  or 
expression  of  a  plan  or  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  infinite  ; 
and  it  may  be  viewed  as  a  consequence  of  the  infinite.  In 
the  former  case,  the  basal  purpose  will  contain  the  ground 
or  reason  for  all  the  determinations  of  the  system ;  and  a 
knowledge  of  the  system  will  depend  upon  a  knowledge  of 
the  purpose  for  whose  expression  and  realization  the  system 
exists.  No  member  of  the  system  will  have  any  ontologi- 
cal  or  other  rights,  except  such  as  its  position  and  significance 
in  the  system  secure  for  it.  Every  finite  thing  is  what  it 
is,  and  where  it  is,  and  when  it  is,  solely  and  only  because 
of  the  requirements  of  the  fundamental  plan.  If  we  view 
the  infinite  as  unintelligent,  we  must  view  the  finite  as  an 
expression  of  the  nature  of  the  infinite.  In  this  case,  the 
finite  is  just  as  dependent  as  in  the  former ;  and  the  nature 
of  the  infinite  becomes  the  determining  principle  of  all  ex- 
istence. The  system  and  its  members  will  be  in  every 
respect  what  this  nature  may  demand ;  and  a  knowledge  of 
what  can  be  or  cannot  be  will  depend  upon  a  knowledge  of 
this  nature.  The  meaning  or  significance  of  the  infinite  at 
any  particular  moment  will  be  the  sole  conditioning  ground 
of  all  things  and  events  in  the  system.  If  movement  takes 
place,  it  will  be  because  the  nature  of  the  infinite  calls  for  it. 
If  it  take  place  in  one  direction  rather  than  another,  it  will 
be  because  the  nature  of  the  infinite  would  not  be  satisfied 
by  motion  in  any  other  direction.  Of  course,  it  is  impossi- 


THE  FINITE  AND  THE  INFINITE.  139 

ble  to  get  any  exhaustive  formula  for  this  conditioning  nat- 
ure ;  but  the  conclusion  follows  not  from  any  insight  into 
the  nature,  but  solely  from  the  formal  position  of  the  infinite 
in  the  system.  All  speculators  alike  must  pass  behind  the 
finite  and  find  the  conditioning  principle  of  the  finite  in  the 
infinite.  If,  for  example,  we  allow  the  physical  elements  to 
be  as  real  as  the  physicist  assumes,  we  have  still  to  allow 
that  their  number  and  nature  and  the  order  of  their  appear- 
ance are  not  determined  by  any  ontological  necessity  in  the 
elements  themselves,  but  only  by  the  demands  which  the  in- 
finite makes  upon  them.  If  the  system  exist  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  a  plan,  the  elements  will  be  in  all  respects  what  the 
plan  of  the  system  demands.  If  there  be  no  plan,  and  the 
infinite  be  only  a  blind  energizing,  still  this  energizing  will 
be  such  as  the  nature  of  the  infinite  demands  for  its  realiza- 
tion. From  this  point,  also,  the  elements  will  be  produced 
in  just  such  number,  order,  and  kind  as  the  significance  of 
the  infinite  demands.  Apart  from  a  knowledge  of  this  nat- 
ure, we  cannot  know  anything  about  the  system.  We  can- 
not say  that  the  present  order  has  always  existed ;  no  more 
can  we  deny  it.  We  cannot  say  that  the  members  of  the 
system  were  all  produced  at  once,  nor  that  they  were  suc- 
cessively originated.  ]STo  more  can  we  know  anything  about 
the  future.  Whether  the  members  of  the  system  will 
always  continue,  or  whether  they  will  instantaneously  or 
successively  disappear,  are  questions  which  lie  beyond  all 
knowledge.  We  do  not  know  what  direction  the  future 
will  take  in  any  respect  whatever.  The  facts  in  all  of  these 
cases  depend  upon  the  plan  or  nature  of  the  infinite ;  and 
unless  we  can  get  an  insight  into  this  plan  and  nature,  our 
knowledge  of  both  past  and  future  must  be  purely  hypo- 
thetical. No  natural  law,  in  and  of  itself,  can  give  any  hint 
of  the  time  and  circumstances  of  its  origin.  If  the  arch  of 
being  were  sprung  at  a  word,  the  laws  of  the  system  would 
still  have  a  virtual  focus  in  the  past,  just  as  the  rays  of  light 
from  a  convex  mirror  seem  to  meet  behind  the  mirror,  but 


140  METAPHYSICS. 

do  not.  Or  if  any  new  order  should  arise  at  any  point  of 
cosmic  history,  this  new  order  would  also  have  a  virtual 
focus  in  an  imaginary  history.  Of  course,  "  demonstrations  " 
abound  concerning  what  has  been  and  what  will  be ;  but 
the  fact  which  they  really  demonstrate  is  quite  other  than 
the  demonstrators  think.  If  we  assume  the  uniformity  of 
nature, we  may  indeed  reach  a  certain  insight;  but  the  re- 
sult is  purely  hypothetical.  This  uniformity  is  contingent ; 
and,  so  far  as  we  know,  a  complete  reversal  of  all  observed 
methods  may  occur  at  any  moment.  The  reason  is,  that  the 
determining  principle  of  the  course  of  nature  lies  beyond 
all  observation  in  the  hidden  plan  or  nature  of  the  infinite. 
Every  system  which  denies  the  independence  of  the  finite 
must  allow  these  conclusions.  The  system  will  be  at  all 
times  and  in  all  respects  what  this  plan  or  nature  demands. 
The  finite  will  come  and  go,  change  and  become,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  same  rule.  The  result  is  that  an  apriori  knowl- 
edge of  the  system  must  be  declared  impossible ;  for  such  a 
knowledge  demands  an  insight  which  no  finite  being  pos- 
sesses. In  addition,  even  deductions  from  experience  are 
only  hypothetically  valid. 

Objections  to  these  conclusions  will  come  from  opposite 
sides.  The  crude  speculator  of  popular  science  will  proba- 
bly take  umbrage  at  the  suggestion  that  the  physical  ele- 
ments are  no  necessarily  fixed  quantities.  Having  heard 
frequently  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter,  the  two  ideas 
have  stuck  together  in  what  he  is  pleased  to  call  his  mind ; 
and  now  he  professes  himself  unable  to  separate  them.  But 
this  mental  impotence  need  not  delay  us.  The  indestructi- 
bility of  matter,  in  the  only  sense  in  which  it  is  proved,  is 
compatible  with  the  complete  phenomenality  of  matter. 
And  how  long  it  shall  remain  true,  even  in  this  sense,  de- 
pends entirely  upon  the  infinite.  A  weightier  objection 
comes  from  the  side  of  the  intellectualist,  who  urges  that  our 
view  is  a  relapse  into  vulgar  empiricism.  If  this  objection 
were  well  founded,  it  would  be  a  serious  one ;  and  as  it  is,  it 


THE  FINITE  AND  THE  INFINITE.  141 

makes  it  necessary  more  clearly  to  define  our  meaning.  In 
the  first  place,  intellectualism,  if  universally  valid,  is  purely 
formal.  Suppose  we  allow  that  all  phenomena  must  appear 
in  space  and  be  subject  to  the  laws  of  space ;  there  is  noth- 
ing in  this  fact  to  determine  which  of  many  possible  phe- 
nomena shall  appear  in  space.  The  most  diverse  phenomena 
are  compatible  with  the  laws  of  space ;  and  hence  these  laws 
do  not  determine  what  phenomena  shall  be  realized.  This 
must  be  determined  by  something  beyond  space;  and  to 
know  the  outcome  we  must  know  more  than  the  formal 
laws  of  space.  Again,  allow  that  the  law  of  causation  is 
universal,  there  is  nothing  in  this  formal  law  to  decide  what 
shall  be  caused.  Here,  again,  we  must  go  outside  of  the 
law  to  find  the  reason  for  any  specific  event.  The  same  is 
true  for  all  other  intellectual  first  principles.  They  are 
purely  formal  and  determine  no  specific  content.  The  sys- 
tem of  logical  categories  merely  outlines  a  knowledge  of 
possibility  and  does  not  give  any  insight  into  the  specific  nat- 
ure of  reality.  A  multitude  of  real  systems  would  be  com- 
patible with  these  categories ;  and  hence  these  categories 
do  not  explain  why  one  of  these  possible  systems  should  be 
real  rather  than  another.  The  specific  nature  of  reality 
must  always  be  learned  from  experience.  To  one  who 
could  fully  grasp  the  nature  of  the  infinite,  or  the  purpose 
which  underlies  the  system,  it  would  be  possible  to  deduce 
it  as  Hegel  sought  to  do ;  but  it  is  doubtful  if  any  one 
could  be  found  nowadays  who  would  claim  such  insight. 
If,  then,  we  were  justified  in  viewing  first  principles  as  uni- 
versally valid,  we  should  still  have  only  a  formal  knowledge, 
and  not  a  knowledge  of  reality.  We  should  still  be  far 
from  knowing  what  the  reality  is  which  exists  within  these 
formal  limits.  And  for  us  there  is  no  way  of  reaching  this 
knowledge  but  by  experience. 

Again,  those  first  principles  themselves  must  be  founded 
in  the  nature  of  the  infinite.  Just  as  what  is  real  is  founded 
in  the  infinite,  so  also  what  is  true  is  founded  in  it.  In  our 


142  METAPHYSICS. 

finite  experience  we  find  ourselves  working  under  a  system 
of  laws  and  principles  which  condition  us,  and  which  all  our 
acts  must  obey.  And  these  laws  are  not  of  our  making,  but 
rule  us  even  against  our  will.  Under  this  experience  there 
grows  up  the  notion  of  a  realm  of  impalpable  and  invisible 
laws,  to  which  all  reality  is  subject.  We  think  of  them  as 
ruling  over  being,  and  not  as  founded  in  being.  And  thus 
first  principles  particularly  are  conceived  as  a  kind  of  bot- 
tomless necessity,  which  depend  on  nothing  for  their  valid- 
ity, and  which  would  exist  if  all  reality  were  away.  But  the 
untenability  of  this  view  is  palpable.  Laws  of  every  sort, 
thought-laws  among  the  rest,  are  never  anything  but  expres- 
sions of  the  nature  of  being.  Reality,  by  being  what  it  is 
and  not  something  else,  founds  all  activity  and  all  law.  If 
a  realm  of  law,  apart  from  being,  were  anything  but  a  mere 
abstraction,  it  could  not  rule  being  except  as  it  came  into 
interaction  with  being.  To  rule  rightly,  the  law  must  be 
affected  by  the  changing  states  of  being,  otherwise  it  might 
command  one  thing  as  well  as  another.  !Nor  would  the 
command  itself  be  enough ;  it  must  enforce  the  command 
by  its  action  upon  its  subjects.  But  this  would  make  the 
law  a  thing.  It  would  act  and  be  acted  upon ;  and  this  is 
precisely  the  definition  of  a  thing.  It  is,  then,  a  mere  de- 
lusion when  we  fancy  that  there  can  be  anything  deeper 
than  being,  or  anything  outside  of  being.  If  outside  of 
being,  being  must  remain  indifferent  to  it,  unless  this  out- 
sider be  able  to  act  upon  and  influence  being.  But  this 
brings  it  at  once  under  the  definition  of  being.  Hence,  all 
laws,  principles,  phenomena,  and  all  finite  reality  must  be 
viewed  as  consequences  or  manifestations  of  the  basal  reality. 
First  truths  also,  even  as  formal  truths  can  be  viewed  only 
as  expressions  or  consequences  of  this  reality,  and  never  as 
its  antecedent,  or  as  independent.  It  may  be  possible  for  us 
to  perceive  truths  which  shall  be  universally  valid  in  the 
system,  true  alike  for  the  finite  and  the  infinite ;  but  it  is 
quite  absurd  to  ask  what  would  be  true  apart  from  the  sys- 


THE  FINITE  AND  THE  INFINITE.  143 

tern.  When  we  ask  such  a  question,  we  are  always  present 
with  our  thought-laws,  derived  from  the  real  system ;  and 
our  imaginary  system  is  always  constructed  on  the  basis  of 
the  present  system,  and  this  we  mistake  for  an  insight  into 
the  nature  of  systems  quite  distinct  from  ours.  But  the 
answer  to  such  questions  always  consists  in  telling  what  is 
now  true  for  us  as  determined  by  the  actual  system  of  reali- 
ty. The  infinite  is,  and  being  what  it  is,  the  system  of  law 
and  truth  is  what  it  is;  and  the  thought  of  other  and  unre- 
lated systems  is  a  pure  abstraction  from  our  imaginary  con- 
structions. The  question  whether  the  system  may  not 
change  its  character,  so  that  what  is  now  true  in  mind  may 
hereafter  become  false,  will  be  answered  differently  accord- 
ing to  the  philosophical  standpoint.  The  empiricist  who 
would  derive  all  truth  from  sense-experience  cannot  deny 
the  possibility.  The  intellectualist,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
claims  in  his  intellectual  intuitions  to  have  an  insight  into 
the  essential  nature  of  reality,  will  deny  the  possibility.  He 
will  hold  that  there  are  certain  principles  which  are  necessary 
and  universal,  and  which,  therefore,  will  always  be  valid.  It 
may  be  further  objected  that  our  view  that  the  laws  of 
thought  are  only  expressions  of  the  nature  of  being,  implies 
that  if  being  were  different,  truth  would  be  different ;  and 
that  this  is  only  Mill's  doctrine  that  two  and  two  may  make 
five  in  another  world.  The  reply  is,  that  Mill  founded  truth 
on  the  individual  experience,  whereas  we  found  it  on  the 
nature  of  the  basal  reality.  The  claim  that  if  this  were  dif- 
ferent, truth  would  be  different,  amounts  only  to  saying  that 
if  everything  were  otherwise,  nothing  would  be  as  it  is.  It 
is  equally  true  and  barren. 

Some  speculators  have  affected  to  find  a  limitation  of  the 
infinite  in  the  claim  that  it  is  subject  to  law  of  any  kind ; 
but  this  is  only  an  overstraining  of  the  notion  of  indepen- 
dence or  absoluteness  which  defeats  itself.  It  is  necessary  to 
the  thought  of  any  agent  that  it  have  some  definite  way  of 
working.  Without  this  the  thought  vanishes  and  the  agent 


144  METAPHYSICS. 

is  nothing.  This  mode,  or  law,  of  action,  however,  is  not 
imposed  from  without ;  but  is  simply  an  expression  of  what 
the  being  is.  As  such  it  is  no  limitation.  The  mind  is  not 
limited  by  the  laws  of  thought ;  but  realizes  itself  in  and 
through  those  laws.  Apart  from  them  it  is  nothing;  and 
they  apart  from  it  are  also  nothing.  The  laws  are  simply 
expressions  of  the  essential  nature  of  mind.  In  the  same 
way  the  laws  of  the  infinite,  instead  of  limiting,  but  express 
what  the  infinite  is.  They  are  not  antecedent  to  it,  nor  sepa- 
rate from  it,  nor  distinct  in  it.  The  only  reality  is  the  being 
in  a  definite  mode  of  activity;  and  from  this  fact  we  form 
the  notion  of  law,  nature,  etc.  But  the  fact  is  always  the 
being  in  action. 

The  conclusion,  then,  is  that  there  is  one  basal  being  in 
action  as  the  source  of  the  system  and  of  all  its  laws,  princi- 
ples, and  realities.  And  this  monism  extends  not  only  to 
things,  but  to  principles  also.  It  has  been  very  common  in 
English  speculation  to  assume  any  number  of  principles, 
alike  independent  of  one  another  and  of  reality.  Space  and 
time,  especially,  have  been  posited  in  mutual  independence, 
and  also  as  independent  of  all  reality,  finite  and  infinite 
alike.  A  common  way  of  putting  it  is,  that  space  and  time 
would  continue  to  exist  if  God  and  the  world  were  both  away. 
A  few  years  ago  an  English  philosopher  of  note  proposed  to 
increase  this  number  of  independent  principles  by  adding 
matter  as  an  "  original  datum  objective  to  God."  He  pro- 
posed to  regard  space,  time,  and  matter  as  original  existences 
mutually  independent,  and  existing  as  conditioning  "  data," 
with  which  God  must  get  along  as  best  he  could.  This 
return  to  the  paleontological  period  of  thought  needs  no 
additional  criticism.  The  view  violates  the  necessary  unity 
of  fundamental  being.  If  space,  time,  and  matter  were  in- 
dependent of  God,  they  could  never  come  into  interaction ; 
and  to  bring  them  into  interaction,  some  one  would  have  to 
be  made  independent,  or  all  would  be  degraded  into  depend- 
ence on  something  truly  fundamental.  Views  like  those 


THE  FINITE  AND   THE  INFINITE.  145 

presented  are  the  scandal  of  philosophy,  and  are  possible 
only  to  the  utmost  superficiality.  Whatever  space  and  time 
may  be,  they  cannot  be  independent  and  original  existences ; 
but  all  alike  must  be  viewed  as  consequences  in  some  way 
of  fundamental  being.  This  results  necessarily  from  the 
unity  of  the  basal  reality,  and  from  the  fact  that  the  nature 
of  this  reality  must  be  the  determining  principle  of  all  sec- 
ondary existence  and  of  all  law  and  manifestation. 
10 


146  METAPHYSICS. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE. 

IN  the  previous  chapter  we  have  discussed  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  infinite  for  the  system,  whatever  view  we  may 
take  of  its  nature ;  but  it  is  of  both  interest  and  importance, 
for  our  further  study,  to  know  whether  this  power  be  blind 
and  necessitated,  or  intelligent  and  free.  Our  entire  cosmo- 
logical  theory  will  vary  greatly,  according  to  our  choice  be- 
tween these  alternatives.  We  expect  to  show  that  an  apri- 
ori  cosmology  is  impossible,  and  that  any  system  of  neces- 
sity swamps  reason  in  scepticism.  And,  since  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  discuss  many  questions  of  cosmology  without  implic- 
itly taking  sides  on  this  point,  it  is  better  to  give  it  the 
prominence  of  a  separate  discussion.  The  complete  deter- 
mination of  our  conception  of  the  infinite  belongs  to  theis- 
tic  philosophy  ;  our  inquiry  confines  itself  to  the  two  points 
of  freedom  and  intelligence.  We  deal  here  with  the  ques- 
tion, because  of  its  bearing  on  the  general  theory  of  knowl- 
edge ;  and  we  hope  to  show  that  the  mind  attains  to  neither 
insight  nor  rest  until  it  presses  behind  necessity  to  an  abso- 
lute personality  or  a  free  intelligence.  Owing  to  its  cosmo- 
logical  bearing,  this  chapter  may  be  considered  a  transition 
from  ontology  to  cosmology. 

"We  have  referred,  in  the  introduction,  to  the  two  orders 
of  mental  movement — the  order  of  reason  and  the  order  of 
experience.  In  the  first  order,  the  connection  is  rational 
and  necessary ;  in  the  second,  it  is  opaque  and  contingent. 
The  general  aim  of  the  mind  is  to  transform  the  latter  order 


THE   NATURE  OF  THE   INFINITE.  147 

into  the  former,  so  that  the  opaque  conjunctions  of  fact  shall 
become  transparent  and  necessary  connections  of  reason. 
From  this  character  of  the  mind  has  resulted  a  general  un- 
willingness to  rest  content  with  the  given.  Either  the  giv- 
en must  be  exhibited  as  having  a  fixed  place  in  a  rational 
system,  or  it  must,  at  least,  be  deduced  from  something  be- 
sides itself.  The  ideal  would  be,  to  show  that  everything 
is  a  rational  necessity,  or  an  implication  of  the  eternal  truths 
of  reason ;  but,  as  few  cherish  the  fair  dream  that  human 
thought  will  ever  reach  this  insight,  the  aim  next  becomes 
to  show  that  everything  is,  at  least,  an  implication  of  some- 
thing else,  and  can  be  understood  only  in  that  something 
else.  Accordingly,  the  mind  is  unwilling  to  pause  in  any 
analysis,  and  perpetually  seeks  to  decompose  even  the  sim- 
ple. In  psychology,  the  discontent  with  a  plurality  of  fac- 
ulties, and  the  resulting  attempt  to  reduce  all  mental  phe- 
nomena to  forms  of  a  common  process,  are  prominent  illus- 
trations. In  physics  and  chemistry  we  meet  the  same  fact, 
in  the  persistent  attempts  to  reduce  all  the  forces  to  varia- 
tions of  a  single  and  simple  process,  or  to  reduce  the  chem- 
ical classes  to  combinations  of  a  common  unit.  Some  spec- 
ulators go  even  further,  and  seek  to  deduce  the  elements 
themselves  from  something  more  ultimate.  Conversely, 
when  the  speculators  set  out  to  construct  a  system,  they  all 
feel  compelled  to  start  with  the  simple  and  undifferentiated, 
and  from  this  to  reach  the  complex  and  manifold.  If  ev- 
erything cannot  be  deduced  from  reason,  it  must,  at  least, 
be  deduced  from  something  else.  Snch  attempts  are  in  no 
way  instigated  by  the  facts  of  observation,  but,  rather,  by 
the  speculative  desire  to  see  every  fact  exhibited  as  a  ra- 
tional necessity. 

This  general  tendency  of  the  mind  to  deduce  its  objects 
has  resulted  in  various  apriori  cosmologies.  In  most  of 
these,  the  attempt  has  been  to  pass,  by  some  necessity  of 
reason,  from  being  to  its  cosmological  manifestations.  Be- 
ing itself  was  not  deduced,  but  accepted,  and  then  the  world 


148  METAPHYSICS. 

was  shown  to  be  a  rational  implication  of  being.  But  one 
system  was  not  content  with  this,  and  sought  to  show  that 
the  world  is  an  implication  not  so  much  of  being  as  of  rea- 
son, or  that  it  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  eternal  truth. 
The  most  noticeable  of  these  cosmologies  are  those  of  Spi- 
noza, Schelling,  Hegel,  and  the  mechanical  evolutionists. 
We  notice  them  in  their  order. 

The  way  in  which  Spinoza  comes  to  his  notion  of  one  in- 
finite substance  is  open  to  criticism,  but  we  are  here  con- 
cerned only  with  the  use  made  of  it  after  he  gets  it.  He 
attempts,  by  a  logical  analysis  of  the  notion,  to  pass  from 
being  to  its  manifestation,  so  that  we  may  see  the  entire 
system  flowing  from  the  notion  of  substance,  as  the  entire 
system  of  mathematics  flows  from  the  basal  definitions  and 
intuitions.  But  the  system  breaks  down  on  the  very  first 
differentiation  which  experience  compels  us  to  recognize, 
that  of  thought  and  extension.  How  comes  the  one  to 
manifest  itself  under  these  opposite  and  incommensurable 
forms  ?  When  a  given  element  exists  under  varying  con- 
ditions, it  is  easy  to  see  how  there  might  be  variety  of  man- 
ifestation ;  but  when  the  element  is  all,  as  in  this  case,  we 
cannot  call  this  illustration  to  our  aid.  There  is  nothing 
outside  of  the  absolute  to  condition  its  manifestation,  and 
hence  this  duality  must  be  explained  from  within.  Spinoza 
sought  to  escape  the  difficulty  by  the  familiar  device  of  a 
double-faced  substance,  which,  on  the  one  side,  is  extension, 
and  on  the  other  side  is  thought;  but  the  difficulty  is  un- 
touched, for  the  point  is  to  know  how,  in  the  undifferentiated 
absolute,  there  can  be  two  faces.  Spinoza  never  solved  this 
problem.  The  two  faces  are  not  deduced,  but  affirmed.  In- 
stead of  being  rational  necessities  of  being,  they  turn  out  to 
be  only  facts  which  might  as  well  have  been  anything  else. 
And  it  is  plain  that  no  reflection  on  the  bare  category  of  sub- 
stance will  ever  carry  us  beyond  this  point.  The  notion  of 
being  in  general  determines  no  specific  being  of  any  sort. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  to  tell  us  what  being  must  be. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  149 

Spinoza  was  equally  unsuccessful  with  the  problem  of 
plurality  which  shattered  the  Eleatic  doctrine.  How,  in 
the  one  and  eternal,  can  the  many  and  temporal  arise  ? 
Spinoza  calls  finite  things  modes  of  the  infinite ;  but  why 
should  the  one  have  many  modes,  and  why  should  they  be 
as  they  are?  Here,  again,  a  declaration  of  the  fact  takes 
the  place  of  its  deduction.  We  do  not  learn  why  the  one 
must  have  many,  and  so  many,  and  such,  modes,  but  only 
that  it  has  them.  The  problem  can  be  solved  only  by  pos- 
iting an  implicit  plurality  in  the  one;  so  that  its  passage 
into  explicit  plurality  is  not  a  passage  from  simplicity  and 
unity  into  complexity  and  plurality,  but  only  a  passage 
from  a  complexity  and  plurality  which  exist  for  reason  into 
one  which  exists  also  for  the  senses.  In  any  necessary  sys- 
tem, it  is  impossible,  by  regressive  reasoning  from  the  com- 
plex and  plural,  to  reach  the  undifferentiated  and  simple. 
For  the  general  character  of  all  mere  reasoning  is,  that  it 
makes  and  eliminates  nothing,  but  merely  transforms  the 
data.  At  every  step  of  such  reasoning  we  are  forced  to 
make  implicit  in  the  antecedents  all  the  antitheses  which 
become  explicit  in  the  consequents.  Even  if  we  reach  a 
single  being,  so  long  as  we  deny  thought,  and  retain  only 
the  principle  of  necessity  and  the  sufficient  reason,  we  are 
forced  to  transport  all  the  antitheses  into  this  being,  and 
posit  an  inner  mechanism  of  metaphysical  states  as  com- 
plex as  the  product.  If  the  many  flow  necessarily  from  the 
one,  it  is  because  the  one  is  implicitly  many.  Reasoning 
backwards,  then,  from  the  outcome,  we  find  the  one  of  Spi- 
noza's philosophy  to  contain,  implicitly,  all  the  oppositions 
and  antitheses  of  the  actual  system.  From  this  standpoint 
we  can  understand  how  some  of  his  critics  could  mistake 
him  for  a  polytheist  and  atomist.  Spinoza  did,  at  times, 
seek  to  make  the  many  an  illusion  of  the  finite,  but  the 
illusion  was  itself  inexplicable. 

Regressive  logical  reasoning  will  never  carry  us  from  the 
complex  to  the  simple.  Progressive  logical  reasoning,  on 


150  METAPHYSICS. 

the  other  hand,  will  never  carry  us  from  the  simple  to  the 
complex.  There  is  neither  motion  nor  direction  in  the 
simple.  It  contains  no  ground  for  advance  or  differentia- 
tion of  any  kind.  It  is  the  incarnated  law  of  identity ;  and, 
in  order  to  get  more  out  of  it,  the"  simplicity  must  be  given 
up,  and  an  implicit  complexity  of  the  simple  must  be  made 
the  starting-point.  In  that  case,  the  explicit  complexity 
would  not  be  truly  deduced,  but  only  allowed  to  pass  from 
the  implicit  to  the  explicit. 

Spinoza's  failure  to  explain,  apriori,  the  simplest  differen- 
tiation of  the  absolute,  would  make  it  needless  to  examine 
any  attempt  to  account  for  the  specific  features  of  the  actual 
world,  if  he  had  made  such  an  attempt.  The  impossibility 
of  deducing  the  various  forms  of  existence  by  simple  reflec- 
tion on  the  notion  of  substance  was  apparent  even  to  Spi- 
noza. But,  whatever  unclearness  of  thought  he  had  at  some 
points,  he  did  understand  his  own  principle  of  necessity. 
With  this  principle,  it  was  easy  to  see  that  all  the  specific 
features  of  reality  must  flow  from  the  basal  substance,  even 
if  we  do  not  see  how.  The  teleological  problem  he  dismissed 
at  once.  The  question,  Why  is  a  thing  so  ?  implies  a  belief 
that  it  might  have  been  otherwise.  We  never  ask  why  two 
and  two  make  four,  or  why  a  straight  line  is  the  shortest 
way  between  two  points ;  and,  if  we  were  convinced  that 
all  events  in  nature  occur  from  a  similar  necessity,  the  ques- 
tion why  ?  would  exist  only  in  unclear  minds.  To  see  that 
all  things  are  necessary  is  to  dismiss  teleology.  In  this  re- 
spect, Spinoza  saw  more  clearly  than  many  modern  anti- 
teleological  speculators.  They  allow  the  question,  and  at- 
tempt to  answer  it  without  appealing  to  teleology.  In  this 
they  are  illogical,  and  they  expose  themselves  to  numberless 
difficulties,  for  their  explanations  rarely  give  even  a  ray  of 
insight  into  the  process.  Their  true  position  would  be  to 
say  that,  since  all  things  are  necessary,  the  question  is  ruled 
out,  for  the  question  implies  that  things  might  have  been 
otherwise.  This  claim  will  prove  very  effective  in  driving 


THE  NATUEE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  151 

off  the  teleologist,  unless  he  should  have  the  presence  of 
mind  to  ask  for  some  proof  that  the  system  flows  from  ne- 
cessity. In  that  case,  it  will  not  be  so  easy  to  dispose  of 
him.  Spinoza's  cosmology  consists  not  in  any  insight  into 
the  system  of  things,  but,  rather,  in  the  assurance  that  it 
must  be  so,  and  in  the  use  of  this  assurance  to  discourage 
all  specific  questions.  Of  course,  no  insight  into  the  actual 
could  be  reached  from  simply  dealing  with  the  formal  cate- 
gory of  being.  It  is  curious  to  notice  how  completely  this 
system  ignores  the  tendency  for  deduction  from  which  it 
sprang.  It  results,  not  in  any  true  explanation  of  the  given, 
but  in  accepting  it  as  beyond  question. 

Schelling's  system  ran  through  various  stages,  until  the 
end  was  quite  unlike  the  beginning.  At  the  start,  his  sys- 
tem was  only  a  modified  Spinozism.  In  the  place  of  two 
attributes,  however,  he  preferred  to  speak  of  two  poles  of 
the  absolute.  The  absolute  itself  is  the  identity  of  thought 
and  being,  just  as  the  centre  of  the  magnet  is  the  point  of 
indifference  between  the  opposite  magnetisms.  But  not 
everything  is  thus  balanced.  In  the  thought  -  world,  the 
thought-pole  is  in  the  ascendant,  while,  in  the  outer  world, 
the  thing-pole  rules.  In  this  way  the  opposition  of  subject 
and  object,  or  of  thought  and  thing,  was  produced.  But 
this  view  is  exposed  to  the  same  objections  as  Spinoza's  sys- 
tem, and,  in  addition,  the  double  polarity  of  the  absolute  is 
incompatible  with  its  unity.  His  attempt  to  explain  it  as  a 
necessary  differentiation  of  the  absolute  succeeds  only  as  he 
smuggles  in  a  set  of  implicit  differences,  which  must  become 
explicit.  If  the  absolute  were  truly  indifferent,  it  would  re- 
main so  forever.  His  later  attempts  to  develop  the  system 
by  a  necessary  process  in  the  absolute  have  the  same  re- 
sult. They  all  posit  implicit  antitheses  in  the  absolute, 
so  that  the  absolute  is  not  properly  the  unity  which  can- 
cels all  differences,  but  the  darkness  which  conceals  them. 
That  this  must  be  so  is  clear  from  what  we  have  said  of 
the  impossibility,  in  a  system  of  necessity,  of  reaching  the 


152  METAPHYSICS. 

complex  from  the  side  of  the  simple,  or  the  simple  from  the 
side  of  the  complex. 

"We  pass  to  Hegel's  system.  This  theory  is,  throughout, 
one  of  development.  Whereas  Schelling  has  identified  the 
ideal  and  the  real  only  in  the  absolute,  Hegel  identified 
them  everywhere.  And,  since  thought  and  being  are  the 
same,  it  is  confusing  to  have  two  terms  for  the  same  thing. 
We  may  say,  then,  that  thought  is  all.  The  laws  of  thought 
are  the  essence  of  reality,  and  the  development  of  thought  is 
creation.  We  need  not  go  abroad,  but  in  our  own  minds 
may  learn  the  deepest  secret  of  the  universe.  But  the  deep- 
est fact  in  thought  is  the  idea,  or  the  notion.  Let  us  ana- 
lyze this,  and  we  shall  find  the  laws  of  existence. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  describe  the  details  of  Hegel's 
system.  It  is  in  itself  essentially  vague — so  much  so,  that 
his  disciples  have  never  been  able  to  agree  concerning  his 
teachings.  Accordingly,  we  have  Hegelians  of  the  right, 
left,  and  centre,  all  of  whom  insist  that  they  have  the  secret 
of  the  master.  The  right  wing  holds  that  Hegelianisin  is 
the  highest  type  of  Christian  theism,  and  the  left  wing 
finds  in  it  atheistic  evolution.  There  is  equally  a  dispute 
whether  the  development  of  the  absolute,  which  he  taught, 
is  to  be  viewed  as  a  real  development  of  the  absolute,  or 
merely  as  the  development  by  which  we  grasp  and  unfold 
the  conception  of  being.  When  he  said  that  thought  is  be- 
ing, did  he  mean  there  can  be  thoughts  without  thinkers,  or 
only  that  thought  can  express  the  content  of  being?  Did 
he  identify  conception  and  reality,  or  did  he  only  mean  that 
the  categories  and  laws  of  thought  are  also  categories  and 
laws  of  being,  so  that  what  thought  calls  for  being  must  re- 
alize, and  what  thought  forbids  is  impossible  in  fact  ?  How- 
ever these  questions  are  answered,  the  system  itself  has  no 
motion  in  it.  The  thought  of  being  pure  and  simple  deter- 
mines nothing  specific.  All  that  can  be  reached  by  ana- 
lyzing the  notion  of  being  is  a  set  of  formal  logical  cate- 
gories, and  but  few  admit  of  a  proper  deduction  from  the 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  153 

notion  of  being.  Only  those  categories  are  deduced  apriori 
which  are  necessary  to  prevent  the  idea  from  falling  into 
nothingness.  Activity  and  definiteness  are  thus  necessary. 
Without  affirming  these,  the  idea  falls  into  contradiction  with 
itself.  The  remaining  categories  of  quantity,  number,  space, 
time,  matter,  etc.,  are  simply  facts  of  experience.  No  amount 
of  reflection  on  the  notion  of  being  shows  that  it  must  be 
manifold  and  plural,  or  that  it  must  manifest  itself  in  space, 
and  under  material  forms.  The  pretended  deductions  of 
these  categories  are  simply  attempts  to  find  some  formal 
connection  between  facts  which  would  never  have  been 
dreamed  of  if  experience  had  not  revealed  them.  More- 
over, if  the  categories  themselves  did  admit  of  a  true  de- 
duction apriori,  we  should  have  only  a  formal  outline  of 
reality,  and  not  its  specific  features.  The  fact  that  every- 
thing is  active  does  not  decide  what  the  form  of  activity 
shall  be.  The  fact  that  being  must  manifest  itself  in  space 
and  in  material  forms  does  not  decide  how  it  shall  manifest 
itself  in  space,  nor  does  it  decide  the  specific  nature  of  the 
material  phenomena.  We  should  thus  have  a  deduction  of 
the  universe  in  general,  without  the  least  insight  into  any- 
thing in  particular.  We  should  have  an  outline  into  which 
all  possible  universes  must  fall,  but  of  the  real  universe  and 
its  detailed  features  we  should  know  nothing. 

Nevertheless,  Hegel  has  immortal  merits.  The  problem 
of  knowledge  received,  perhaps,  its  sharpest  statement  from 
him.  The  necessary  rationality  of  the  real  he  established 
once  for  all.  The  significance  of  reason  for  being  he  set  in 
the  clearest  light.  The  categories  of  thought  must  be  cate- 
gories of  being.  Whatever  is  to  be  grasped  by  thought 
must  be  cast  in  the  moulds  of  thought.  To  him  the  irra- 
tional was  the  impossible;  and,  since  the  content  of  being 
must  be  determined  by  thought,  there  can  never  be  any  rea- 
son for  giving  it  other  than  a  rational  content.  Moreover, 
it  is  possible  to  give  his  system  a  theistic  signification  which 
is  full  of  meaning.  The  theist  must  allow  that  the  system 


154:  METAPHYSICS. 

of  things  is  the  expression  of  a  purpose  for  whose  realiza- 
tion it  exists.  He  must  further  allow  that,  if  we  could  grasp 
that  conditioning  purpose,  we  could  see  the  whole  system 
flowing  from  it  by  logical  necessity.  If  purpose  be  supreme, 
then  every  feature  of  the  system  must  be  a  demand  of  the 
basal  idea,  and  must  have  a  significance  for  the  whole.  It 
was,  then,  a  great  thought  of  Hegel's  to  seek  to  determine 
the  significance  of  the  various  parts  of  the  system  for  the 
whole,  and  such  an  aim  was  entirely  consistent  and  intelli- 
gible. He  failed  on  two  accounts.  (1.)  We  have  not  suffi- 
cient insight  into  the  conditioning  thought  to  enable  us  to 
grasp  it  and  its  implications.  We  may  be  very  sure  that 
such  an  idea  would  not  be  a  simple  and  single  thing  like 
the  notion,  but,  rather,  a  highly  complex  plan.  (2.)  The 
idea  itself  would  not  secure  its  own  fulfilment.  The  laws 
of  logic  may  demand  much  of  reality,  but,  in  themselves, 
they  can  never  compel  obedience.  In  order  to  pass  from 
conception  to  reality,  the  plan  must  be  set  in  reality,  and 
we  must  pass  from  a  simply  logical  connection  to  dynamic 
connection.  This  connection,  though  logical,  is  always  some- 
thing more,  the  additional  element  being  the  indefinable 
mystery  which  separates  a  thought  from  a  thing.  But  the 
incarnated  plan  is  simply  mechanism,  with  the  plan  for  its 
inner  law.  This  point  Hegel  almost  entirely  overlooked. 
When  he  had  shown  that  the  logic  of  the  idea  or  plan  de- 
manded something,  he  forgot  entirely  that,  without  a  ful- 
filling agency  of  some  sort,  the  demand  of  logic  would  re- 
main a  demand  forever. 

We  have  next  to  notice  the  scheme  of  the  mechanical 
evolutionists.  Once  in  a  while  some  romantic  disciple  of 
this  view  proposes  to  evolve  everything  from  something, 
which  is  not  much  of  anything.  He  is  not  content  to  as- 
sume matter  and  its  laws  as  given,  but  wishes  to  evolve 
them ;  and  every  definite  fact,  of  whatever  sort,  he  insists 
on  viewing  as  a  product.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has,  per- 
haps, gone  further  in  this  direction  than  any  one.  He 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  155 

states  the  problem  of  philosophy  to  be,  to  construe  the  pas- 
sage of  the  universe  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heteroge- 
neous. This  passage  he  calls  evolution,  which  he  defines  to 
be  a  passage  from  an  indefinite  incoherent  homogeneity  to 
a  definite  coherent  heterogeneity,  through  continuous  dif- 
ferentiations and  integrations ;  and  his  entire  system  is  writ- 
ten to  illustrate  and  defend  this  formula.  The  nature  of 
this  homogeneous  is  nowhere  very  clearly  stated.  At  times 
it  seems  to  be  diffused  matter,  and  one  definition  of  evo- 
lution reduces  the  process  to  a  redistribution  of  matter 
and  motion.  But  the  view  which  his  writings  best  support 
is,  that  this  homogeneous  is,  simply,  persistent  and  unknow- 
able force.  It  ought  to  be  beyond  all  antitheses  and  dis- 
tinctions of  every  kind,  for,  in  so  far  as  it  has  oppositions 
of  any  sort  in  it,  it  is  not  homogeneous.  But,  when  Mr. 
Spencer  first  allows  us  to  see  it,  it  already  possesses  the  distinc- 
tions of  matter  and  force,  matter  and  ether,  attraction  and 
repulsion,  and,  indeed,  of  atomic  individuality.  How  these 
primal  differentiations  were  reached  Mr.  Spencer  never  tells 
us.  At  times  he  attempts  to  show  that  all  the  laws  and  col- 
locations of  matter  result  directly  from  the  persistence  of 
force,  but  the  showing  consists  not  in  any  insight  into  the 
facts,  but  only  in  the  claim  that  nothing  could  have  been 
otherwise  without  implying  that  some  force  which  did  act 
should  not  have  acted,  or  that  some  new  force,  which  did 
not  act,  should  have  acted.  Sundry  attempts  are  made  to 
deduce  vital,  social,  and  political  movements  from  the  phys- 
ical forces;  and,  whenever  the  objection  is  made  that  the 
deduction  is  pure  assertion,  the  invariable  answer  is,  that  to 
question  it  is  to  question  the  persistence  of  force.  The  en- 
tire force  of  the  argument  consists  in  the  same  appeal  to  ne- 
cessity which  is  familiar  to  the  student  of  Spinoza.  This 
appeal,  however,  makes  even  the  attempt  at  explanation  in- 
consistent ;  for,  to  ask  why  anything  is  as  it  is  assumes  that 
it  might  have  been  otherwise.  From  the  side  of  being  we 
get  no  hint  of  what  is  necessary,  but,  from  the  side  of 


156  METAPHYSICS. 

the  manifestation  we  learn  what  the  necessity  is,  and  then, 
by  appealing  to  necessity,  we  ward  off  questions  as  to  the 
process.  No  analysis  of  the  notion  of  the  homogeneous 
gives  any  insight  into  the  present  order,  or  even  into  the 
simplest  mechanical  laws.  There  is  no  visible  reason  why 
it  should  take  on  any  of  the  forms  of  the  real  world ;  in- 
deed, it  does  not  account  even  for  the  simplest  change. 

Spencer  attempts  to  provide  for  motion  and  progress  by 
setting  up  a  principle  which  he  calls  the  instability  of  the 
homogeneous.  This  principle  is  demonstrably  false.  The 
homogeneous,  logically  and  mechanically  considered,  is,  prop- 
erly, the  only  stable.  It  denotes  that  which  is  alike  in  every 
part.  There  can  be  no  variations  of  force  or  motion  in  it, 
for  that  would  introduce  an  element  of  heterogeneity  into 
it.  But  a  thing  thus  homogeneous  would  be  in  equilibrium, 
and  would  remain  so  forever,  if  not  interfered  with.  The 
illustrations  given  of  this  principle  all  fail  to  illustrate,  and 
consist  of  pretended  homogeneities,  acted  upon  by  some- 
thing outside  of  them.  Of  course,  there  is  nothing  outside 
of  the  all,  and  such  illustrations  do  not  apply.  Instead  of 
saying,  then,  that  instability  varies  as  the  homogeneity,  we 
must  rather  say  that  it  varies  as  the  heterogeneity.  The 
bare  notion  of  the  homogeneous  has  neither  motion  nor 
progress  in  it,  and  leads  to  nothing.  A  very  profound  re- 
flection upon  the  homogeneous  sees  in  it  no  necessity  for 
the  physical  elements,  with  their  present  classes,  powers, 
combinations,  etc.  It  is  a  purely  formal  notion,  which  can 
never  advance  beyond  itself.  On  the  other  hand,  when, 
from  the  heterogeneous,  we  reason  by  simple  mechanical 
necessity,  we  never  come  to  any  homogeneous  state,  for,  as 
we  have  said,  reasoning  never  creates  anything,  but  only 
makes  explicit  in  the  conclusion  what  was  implicit  in  the 
premises.  We  merely  pass,  in  such  a  regress,  from  a  hete- 
rogeneity which  exists  for  the  senses  to  one  which  exists  only 
for  reason ;  but  the  farthest  point  reached  contains,  implic- 
itly, all  the  heterogeneity  of  the  present. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  157 

We  said  that  Mr.  Spencer  should  regard  the  homogene- 
ous as  lying  beyond  all  antitheses  of  every  kind.  For  the 
most  part,  however,  he  views  it  simply  as  diffused  matter, 
endowed  with  all  its  present  forces,  and  subject  to  its  pres- 
ent laws,  and  moving  through  an  ethereal  medium.  But 
this  is  not  a  homogeneity  of  any  sort.  In  it  are  already  the 
antitheses  of  matter  and  force,  of  matter  and  ether,  of  at- 
traction and  repulsion,  and,  above  all,  the  antithesis  of  indi- 
viduality, each  atom  being  a  separate  and  distinct  thing. 
With  this  understanding  of  the  homogeneous,  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's problem  reduces  to  that  of  ordinary  materialistic  athe- 
ism— namely,  given  diffused  matter  and  its  laws  to  account 
for  the  forms  and  phenomena  of  the  system. 

A  paragraph  must  be  devoted  to  this  phase  of  necessary 
evolution.  It  regards  the  forms  and  order  of  the  system  as 
a  necessary  outcome  of  the  nature  of  matter.  From  the 
standpoint  reached  in  the  last  two  chapters,  this  view  is  ut- 
terly untenable,  unless  matter  be  defined  in  a  way  quite  for- 
eign to  the  common  view.  Matter,  conceived  as  a  manifold 
of  discrete  elements,  is  incapable  of  explaining  anything, 
without  the  co-operation  and  co-ordination  of  a  basal  one. 
It  may  be  worth  while,  however,  to  allow,  for  the  sake  of 
argument,  the  self-sufficiency  of  matter,  and  inquire  into  the 
possibility  of  constructing  the  system  on  a  purely  material 
and  mechanical  basis. 

The  great  source  of  faith  in  such  a  possibility  seems  to  be 
a  certain  misunderstanding  of  mechanical  necessity.  When 
the  laws  of  motion  are  said  to  be  necessary,  and  the  laws  of 
force  are  said  to  be  fixed,  the  fancy  is  entertained  that  there 
is  no  longer  any  room  for  choice  or  purpose,  for  the  fixed 
laws  make  only  one  result  possible.  We  shall  hereafter 
prove  that  the  laws  themselves  bear  no  marks  of  necessity, 
but,  at  present,  we  allow  them  to  be  necessary,  and  point 
out  that  the  necessary  laws  alone  determine  nothing,  but 
only  when  combined  with  certain  arbitrary  data.  To  attain 
any  specific  effect  in  mechanics,  the  necessary  laws  must 


158  METAPHYSICS. 

work  under  peculiar  conditions,  which  may  be  called  the 
arbitrary  constants  of  the  system.  Gravity  is  compatible 
with  dead  rest,  with  motion  in  a  straight  line,  and  with  the 
greatest  variety  of  orbital  motions.  The  fact  in  each  case 
is  decided,  not  by  gravity,  but  by  the  peculiar  character  of 
the  arbitrary  constants ;  in  this  case,  by  the  peculiar  dispo- 
sition and  velocity  and  masses  of  the  attracting  matter. 
The  same  is  true  for  all  the  other  general  laws  and  forces 
of  matter.  As  general,  they  contain  no  account  of  any  spe- 
cific fact,  but  are  just  as  compatible  with  any  other  specific 
fact  whatever.  The  explanation  of  the  peculiar  outcome 
must  be  sought  entirely  in  the  arbitrary  constants.  It  is 
this  fact  which  has  led  to  the  general  conviction  that  a  me- 
chanical explanation  of  an  effect  can  never  be  ultimate. 
This  is  expressed  by  the  statement  that  the  collocations  of 
matter  can  never  be  explained  by  the  laws  of  matter,  and 
the  collocations  are  the  chief  facts  to  be  explained.  And  it 
must  be  confessed  that  the  peculiarities  of  the  system  find 
no  explanation  in  the  fact  that  it  is  subject  to  invariable  or 
necessary  mechanical  laws.  The  peculiar  forms  and  direc- 
tion of  the  system  find  their  explanation  only  in  the  arbi- 
trary constants  of  the  system.  Mechanical  necessity,  there- 
fore, is  always  hypothetical ;  the  effect  is  necessary  only  on 
the  assumed  truth  of  the  data.  But  the  data  themselves 
will  always  have  an  arbitrary  character.  It  is  at  this  point 
that  theism  has  always  triumphed  over  mechanical  atheism. 
It  is  willing  to  allow  that  effects  may  be  realized  in  nature 
by  a  system  of  mechanical  necessity,  but  insists  that  the  ar- 
bitrary constants  of  the  system  were  chosen  with  reference 
to  the  end  to  be  realized.  When,  then,  the  atheist  dwells 
upon  the  necessity  of  every  event  in  nature,  the  theist  points 
out  that  this  alleged  necessity  has  an  arbitrary  element  in  it 
which  looks  amazingly  like  choice.  It  is  at  this  point  that  a 
reconciliation  is  possible  between  teleology  and  mechanism. 
Purpose  may  determine  the  arbitrary  data,  and  mechanism 
may  realize  the  purpose. 


TI1E  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  159 

If,  however,  we  are  determined  to  allow  no  purpose  in 
the  system,  then  our  theory  must  take  another  form.  Mech- 
anism, of  itself,  accounts  for  no  specific  law  or  collocation. 
The  principles  of  mechanics  and  the  fixed  laws  of  force  are 
as  compatible  with  disorder  and  unmeaning  combinations 
as  with  order  and  purpose.  The  laws  of  physics  are  as  ab- 
solute in  the  Great  Desert  as  in  the  flower- covered  field. 
The  difference  is  due,  not  to  a  difference  of  law,  but  of  cir- 
cumstances under  which  the  law  works.  To  give  a  mechan- 
ical account  of  everything,  we  must  explain  the  circum- 
stances also.  But  this  is  mechanically  impossible.  We  can, 
indeed,  explain  the  peculiar  character  of  the  consequent  by 
referring  it  to  its  antecedent,  but  the  antecedent  must  al- 
ways be  one  which  implicitly  contains  the  peculiarity  of 
the  consequent,  so  that,  in  strictness,  we  do  not  explain  the 
peculiarity,  but  remove  it  one  step  back.  No  matter  how 
far  back  we  go,  the  difficulty  always  precedes  us.  At  the 
farthest  point,  our  data  contain  implicitly  all  the  conclu- 
sions which  can  ever  be  drawn  from  them,  and  they  also 
exclude  every  other  conclusion.  Whatever  was  said  of  rea- 
soning in  general  applies  with  especial  force  to  mechanical 
reasoning.  It  creates  nothing,  but  merely  makes  explicit 
the  implications  of  the  data.  We  have  seen  that  arbitrary 
data  have  to  be  assumed,  in  order  to  give  any  specific  value 
to  mechanical  forms,  and  those  data  contain  all  that  is  to 
come  out  of  them.  Conversely,  when  we  reason  backwards, 
from  effects  to  antecedents,  we  have  to  attribute  them,  not 
to  any  and  every  antecedent,  but  to  antecedents  which  con- 
tain all  the  mystery  and  peculiarity  of  the  effects.  Tims 
we  never  escape  our  arbitrary  constants,  and  never  explain 
them.  They  are  in  the  data,  as  well  as  in  the  conclusion. 
We  refer  a  to  —  a,  and  —  a  is  referred  to  —  2«,  and  so  on  to 
— na.  If  —  na  is  given,  then,  in  the  course  of  time,  a  will 
appear;  but,  at  the  farthest  point,  —  na,  we  have  a  implic- 
itly and  necessarily  given.  In  such  a  scheme,  we  reach  no 
resting-place,  and  no  true  explanation.  A  given  fact,  0,  is, 


160  METAPHYSICS. 

because  —  a  was;  and  —a  was,  because  —  2a  preceded  it; 
and  so  on  in  endless  regress.  But,  as  all  later  orders  and 
collocations  were  implicitly  given  in  —  na,  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  others,  it  follows  that  the  specific  fact,  #,  is  deduced 
from  its  antecedents,  because  it  was  implied  in  them.  In 
any  necessary  scheme,  any  given  fact  is  only  a  phase  of  the 
one  all-embracing  necessity;  and,  since  this  necessity  is  only 
a  fact  to  be  admitted,  and  not  comprehended,  every  fact  is 
of  the  same  sort.  The  mechanical  explanation  of  a  fact 
turns  out  to  consist  in  assuming  a  certain  cause  or  causes  of 
such  a  kind  and  in  certain  relations,  that  they  must  produce 
that  fact,  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other.  It  explains  the 
conclusion  always  by  assuming  it  in  the  data.  This,  how- 
ever, is  not  the  scholastic  principle,  that  all  that  is  contained 
in  the  effect  is  contained  in  the  cause.  It  only  says  that, 
to  explain  an  effect  mechanically,  the  antecedents  must  be 
of  a  specific  kind,  and  that  the  effect  would  be  lacking  if 
the  antecedents  were  different.  A  mechanical  cosmology, 
therefore,  is  not  possible  on  the  basis,  simply,  of  matter  and 
mechanical  laws,  but  only  on  the  basis  of  matter  so  arranged, 
and  with  such  peculiar  properties  and  circumstances,  that,  if 
left  to  itself,  it  must  infallibly  realize  the  present  system. 
But  these  arbitrary  constants,  which  condition  the  product 
of  the  fixed  laws,  contain  the  very  gist  of  the  matter,  and 
are  left  unexplained.  The  collocations  of  matter  are  not 
inherent  necessities  of  matter  in  general,  any  more  than  the 
plan  of  a  building  is  inherent  in  its  material. 

Pressed  by  these  difficulties,  some  speculators  take  refuge 
in  the  notion  that  matter  has  certain  mystic  and  subtle  ten- 
dencies, whereby  it  tends  to  assume  its  peculiar  forms.  This 
is  as  if  one  should  explain  statues  by  saying  that  marble  has 
a  subtle  tendency  to  take  on  the  human  form.  But  this  is 
to  leave  all  clearness  of  thought,  and  take  refuge  in  the 
worst  form  of  scholasticism.  "We  can  form  some  definite 
thought  of  motion  and  its  laws,  but  a  "  mystic  and  subtle 
tendency"  defies  all  comprehension.  An  explanation  by 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  161 

the  mystic  is  purely  verbal.  Besides,  it  does  not  escape  our 
objection,  that  mechanism  does  not  explain  order  and  pur- 
pose-like arrangement,  for  this  new  view  does  not  explain 
the  facts  by  matter  as  subject  to  the  laws  of  force  and  mo- 
tion, but  by  matter  as  subject  to  these  laws  plus  certain 
mystic  and  subtle  tendencies.  But  these  tendencies,  also, 
must  be  subject  to  fixed  laws  of  some  kind,  so  that,  when 
we  take  into  account  all  the  constants  of  the  system,  we  once 
more  find  our  data  necessarily  including  the  conclusion,  and 
excluding  all  plurality  of  possibility.  In  addition,  we  have 
abundantly  seen  that  cosmology  is  not  possible  at  all,  on  any 
pluralistic  basis  whatever. 

We  conclude,  then,  that  the  present  order  cannot  be  un- 
derstood as  the  outcome  of  any  logical  or  ontological  neces- 
sities. It  has  all  the  marks  of  contingency,  in  that  all  its  cir- 
cumstances might  conceivably  have  been  otherwise.  Hence 
we  know  that  it  is  the  product  of  necessity  simply  by  as- 
suming that  it  is  so.  No  reflection  on  the  formal  categories 
of  being,  cause,  dependence,  etc.,  will  give  any  insight  into 
any  of  the  specific  features  of  the  system.  The  order,  then, 
must  be  assumed  as  an  ultimate  fact,  of  which  no  account 
can  be  given,  or  we  must  leave  the  plane  of  mere  ontology 
and  logical  categories,  and  rise  to  the  conception  of  intelli- 
gence arid  purpose.  If  we  assume  the  order  as  an  opaque 
fact,  to  be  admitted  rather  than  understood,  we  completely 
abandon  the  enthusiasm  for  explanation  which  ruled  our 
earlier  efforts.  Instead  of  deducing  everything,  we  confess 
that  nothing  whatever  can  be  truly  explained ;  and,  having 
failed  to  explain  cosmology  on  a  certain  basis,  we  abandon 
all  attempts  at  explanation,  and  fall  back  into  a  fatalistic 
positivism,  which,  in  turn,  must  pass  into  an  all-devouring 
scepticism. 

All  of  these  systems  of  necessity  find  it  very  difficult  to 

maintain  the  unity  of  the  infinite.     Spinoza's  conception  of 

the  modes,  and  Schelling's  doctrine  of  opposite  polarities, 

are  both  incompatible  with  the  unity  of  the  substance.     Ac- 

11 


162  METAPHYSICS. 

cording  to  Spinoza,  the  attribute  expresses  the  essence,  and 
hence  incommensurable  attributes  cannot  belong  to  the  same 
essence.  And  the  problem  is  a  difficult  one,  even  when  we 
view  the  infinite  as  cause ;  for,  as  omnipresent  in  the  system, 
the  infinite  must  act  in  everything,  and  it  must  act  in  each 
thing  with  exact  reference  to  its  activities  in  every  other 
thing.  If  the  activities  were  discrete  and  unrelated,  there 
would  be  no  system,  but  only  a  chaotic  doing.  But  if  the 
infinite  be  unintelligent,  it  knows  nothing  of  itself,  nor  of 
its  activities,  nor  of  the  harmony  which  is  necessary  among 
them.  Hence  the  unity  and  guidance  of  intelligence  must 
be  replaced  by  a  mechanism  of  inner  states,  which,  by  their 
interactions,  determine  all  outcome.  But  this  view  would 
go  far  towards  making  the  states  things,  and  cancelling  the 
unity  of  the  infinite.  The  infinite  would  not  be  an  agent, 
but  a  great  series  of  states.  Underneath  the  causation  of 
the  infinite,  we  should  have  to  posit  an  order  of  causation 
in  the  infinite,  and  this  would  leave  the  infinite,  conceived 
as  an  agent,  second,  and  not  first.  Thus  the  idea  of  the  in- 
finite as  absolute  would  disappear.  The  trouble  is  further 
aggravated  by  the  fact  that  states  can  be  properly  predi- 
cated only  of  personal  existence.  In  discussing  change,  we 
saw  that  in  impersonal  existence  the  being  and  the  state  fall 
together,  so  that  there  is  no  agent  apart  from  the  states. 
We  also  saw  that  impersonal  being  is  simply  a  process  whose 
several  phases  exhaust  reality  while  they  last.  But,  to  ex- 
plain the  system,  the  infinite  process  must  differentiate  itself 
into  infinite  variety,  and  necessity  contains  no  principle  of 
differentiation.  A  necessary  on-going  which  is  complex  and 
plural  at  one  point  is  so  at  all  points.  Hence,  to  explain  the 
differentiation,  we  must  posit  all  the  antitheses  of  the  actual 
world  in  this  process  in  opposition  and  interaction.  Thus 
we  fall  back  again  into  the  notion  of  a  series  of  interacting 
metaphysical  states,  which  determine  the  outcome  of  the 
infinite. 

Now  this  notion  of  interacting  states  in  the  one  absolute 


THE  NATURE   OF  THE  INFINITE.  1G3 

being  must  be  declared  untenable.  That  which  makes  it 
seem  possible  is  the  false  reference  of  each  state  to  a  part  of 
the  being,  so  that  they  can  enter  into  a  kind  of  spatial  in- 
teraction. Of  course,  we  cannot  regard  the  states  as  things, 
or  as  states  of  parts  of  the  infinite,  for  that  would  cancel  its 
unity  at  once.  We  can  only  mean  that  the  plurality  of 
states  flows  necessarily  from  the  nature  of  the  infinite,  and 
that  the  succession  of  states  is  determined  by  the  antecedent 
states.  But  in  that  case  the  principle  of  unity  disappears, 
and  we  lose  ourselves  in  the  labyrinth  of  the  infinite  regress. 
We  are,  indeed,  told  that  there  is  a  unity,  but  the  plurality 
is  all  we  reach.  Likewise,  the  infinite  itself  is  made  subject 
to  time,  and  its  present  is  referred  to  its  past.  Thus  we 
chase  the  horizon.  We  reach  no  proper  unity,  but  are  lost 
among  a  plurality  of  states.  We  also  reach  no  proper  ground 
of  any  thing,  owing  to  the  impassable  gulf  of  the  infinite 
regress.  Thus  reason  finds  no  rest  in  the  assumption  that 
the  infinite  is  determined  by  its  states.  We  must,  then,  as- 
sume that  the  infinite  determines  its  states,  and  that  it  is 
always,  and  at  every  point,  what  it  determines  itself  to  be. 
There  is  nothing  dynamically  deeper  than  this  self-deter- 
mination. It  is  first,  not  second.  It  grounds  everything, 
without  being  itself  grounded.  Thus  we  escape  the  endless 
regress  of  necessity.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  abyss  of 
arbitrariness  yawns  to  engulf  us.  To  escape  this,  we  must 
assume  that  this  self-determination  is  not  in  the  dark  of 
chance,  but  in  the  light  of  intelligence,  and,  hence,  that  the 
self -determiner  is  personal  and  intelligent.  Only  in  this 
conception  of  the  free  person  can  thought  be  reconciled 
with  itself,  and  a  true  explanation  be  reached.  This  is  the 
only  unity  which  can  be  manifold,  and  the  only  manifold 
which  can  be  a  unity.  This,  too,  is  the  only  escape  from 
the  impossible  and  disintegrating  notion  of  interacting  met- 
aphysical states.  Again,  only  in  this  notion  of  absolute  per- 
sonality can  we  attain  to  the  proper  independence  and  ab- 
soluteness of  the  infinite.  As  long  as  we  remain  on  the 


i  jfv<$ 
/ 
* 


.l&Ue.lKf'Mc. 

ontol<5|jical  plane,  the  iftfinfte  is  subject  to  the  law  of  time ; 
indeed,  it  is  in  perpetual  flow,  and  without  any  possession  of 
itself.     It  attains  to  self-possession  and  self-identity  only  in 
'its  free  selfhood.     Finally,  only  in  free  thought  do  we  at- 
>j*       tain  to  any  true  explanation.     The  one,  by  an  act  of  free- 
jjj  dom,  posits  the  many,  and  the  many  have  their  ground  and 
&**/*     unity  in  the  will  and  thought  of  the  one.     Thus  we  escape 
ijl  (fff.the  need  of  viewing  the  infinite  as  a  mass  of  implicit  antith- 
*  |eses  and  contradictions,  as  all  systems  of  necessity  must  do. 
ISo  system  which  founds  cosmology  in  anything  but  an  act 
of  free-will  can  retain  the  unity  of  the  infinite.     Of  course, 
,  jW      no  one  can  comprehend  the  possibility  of  a  free  and  abso- 
.1    lute  person,  but  no  more  can  we  comprehend  the  opposite 
J^rf  possibility  of  an  all-embracing  and  eternal  necessity.     It  is 
\  \1     enough  to  show  that  thought  can  rest  only  in  the  former. 
^.V^  Y    The  objection  that  personality  implies  the  limitation  of  the 
I    infinite  disappears  when  we  remember  that  the  personality 
of  the  infinite  means  only  that  the  infinite  has  knowledge 
of  itself  and  its  activities,  and  determines  itself  accordingly. 

This  ontological  argument  for  the  personality  of  the  infi- 
nite consists  in  showing  that  no  other  conception  is  consist- 
ent with  thought  itself.  We  have  further  seen  that  if  we 
seek  a  true  explanation  of  the  system,  it  can  be  found  only 
in  will  and  purpose.  We  have  next  to  inquire  whether 
there  is  any  further  warrant  for  viewing  the  system  as 
founded  in  thought.  Two  questions  arise.  (1.)  Is  there  any 
reason  in  the  order  of  nature  for  affirming  intelligence  of 
the  power  not  ourselves?  (2.)  What  is  the  logical  outcome 
of  denying  it  ?  The  two  questions  mutually  imply  each 
other. 

The  first  question  admits  of  a  short  discussion.  From 
our  standpoint  we  are  freed  from  all  pluralistic  theories  of 
the  basal  fact.  The  fundamental  being  is  one.  The  law  of 
causation  and  the  necessary  determination  of  all  events  in 
nature,  which  are  recognized  principles  in  all  science,  ex- 


THE  NATURE   OF  THE  INFINITE.  105 

elude  all  appeals  to  chance  or  hazard.  These  make  it  im- 
possible that  any  necessary  system  should  introduce  into 
itself  any  factor  which  was  not  in  it  from  the  beginning. 
New  phenomena  may,  indeed,  be  introduced  ;  but  to  reason, 
the  phenomena  are  implicit  in  the  system,  and  a  mind  which 
could  grasp  all  the  circumstances  of  the  system  at  any  mo- 
ment would  find  both  its  history  and  its  future  completely 
given.  The  making  clear  of  this  conception  is  one  of  the 
great  services  of  the  mechanical  theory  of  nature  to  theism. 
It  has  vacated  all  appeals  to  chance,  and  dispelled  the  notion 
that  forms  and  collocations  may  be  explained  by  any  neces- 
sary agency  in  which  they  are  not  implicit.  What,  then,  is 
the  nature  of  the  power  which  works  in  and  through  what 
we  call  nature  ? 

The  only  means  of  knowing  the  nature  of  an  agent  is  to 
observe  what  it  does.  The  bare  notion  of  agency  is  empty 
of  specification,  and  no  analysis  will  reveal  any  content  be- 
yond the  general  category.  What  is  true  of  all  agency  is 
especially  true  of  mind.  A  mistake  which  flows  directly 
from  our  general  bondage  to  the  senses  leads  us  to  fancy 
that  we  see  our  neighbors'  minds ;  and  it  has  generally  been 
argued  against  theism  that  we  see  mind  in  man,  but  none  in 
nature.  This  claim  it  is  one  of  the  first  effects  of  psychology 
to  dispel.  We  know  that  our  fellow-beings  have  minds  only 
because  they  act  as  if  they  had ;  that  is,  because  their  action 
shows  order  and  purpose.  But  no  one  will  claim  that  the 
system  of  things  shows  less  order  and  purpose  than  human 
action.  If,  then,  we  deny  mind  in  nature,  there  is  no  rea- 
son for  affirming  mind  in  man.  Indeed  there  is  vastly  more 
proof  that  the  power  which  works  in  nature  is  intelligent 
than  there  is  that  men  are  intelligent. 

We  must  go  a  step  further.  The  last  paragraph  showed 
that  the  same  argument  which  denies  mind  in  nature  throws 
equal  doubt  upon  mind  in  man.  We  have  next  to  show 
that  if  there  be  no  controlling  mind  in  nature,  there  can  be 
no  controlling  mind  in  man.  For  if  the  basal  power  is  nee- 


166  METAPHYSICS. 

essary,  all  that  depends  upon  it  is  also  necessary.  In  that 
case  all  unfolding  is  driven  from  behind,  and  nothing  is 
led  from  before.  Thoughts  and  feelings  also  come  within 
this  necessary  unfolding.  As  such  they  are  products,  and 
not  causes.  They  express  simply  the  outcome  and  attend- 
ant of  a  certain  phase  of  the  universal  mechanism.  In  that 
case  any  fancy  of  self-control  which  we  may  have  must  be 
dismissed  as  delusive.  Our  thoughts,  etc.,  attend  on  the 
flow  of  reality,  but  affect  nothing.  If  the  forms  and  collo- 
cations of  nature  are  the  product  of  a  mere  automatic  power, 
their  human  life  and  history  also  express  no  mind  or  pur- 
pose, but  only  the  working  of  the  same  automaton.  In  ear- 
lier forms  of  the  theistic  argument,  it  was  contended  that 
the  eye  is  designed  because  it  shows  the  same  marks  of  de- 
sign which  the  watch  does.  The  answer  was  that  we  know 
the  watch  to  be  designed,  but  we  do  not  know  the  eye  to 
be  designed.  But  now  we  see  that  this  answer  is  untenable. 
We  do  not  know,  but  only  infer,  that  the  watch  is  designed ; 
and  if  we  allow  that  the  eye  is  not  designed,  we  must  deny 
that  design  had  any  part  in  the  production  of  the  watch. 
If  mind  does  not  control  in  nature,  it  cannot  control  in 
man ;  and,  conversely,  if  mind  does  control  in  man,  it  must 
also  control  in  nature.  If  automatism  be  the  foundation  of 
the  system,  there  can  be  nothing  but  automatism  in  the  sys- 
tem. 

The  second  question,  What  is  the  outcome  of  denying 
controlling  mind  in  nature?  is  already  partly  answered. 
The  direct  result  in  clear  thought  is  (1)  to  make  all  action 
automatic,  and  to  reduce  consciousness  to  a  powerless  at- 
tendant upon  the  mechanical  processes  of  the  system.  (2) 
It  allows  one  to  believe  even  in  such  an  attendant  only  in 
himself ;  for,  as  the  actions  of  others  are  now  known  to  be 
purely  automatic,  and  not  expressions  of  thought  or  pur- 
pose, there  is  not  the  least  warrant  for  affirming  any  such 
idle  attendants.  But  this  position  does  such  violence  to  in- 
telligence that  it  cannot  be  held  without  breaking  down  all 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE   INFINITE.  167 

trust  in  the  mind  and  its  products.  An  inevitable  scepti- 
cism would  at  once  result. 

We  reach  the  same  conclusion  from  another  standpoint. 
Any  theory  which  shakes  the  mind's  trust  in  itself  is  specu- 
latively  untenable ;  and  for  the  reason  that  the  theory  can 
be  established  only  by  trusting  our  faculties,  while  the  mo- 
ment it  is  established  it  undermines  itself.  Now  the  theory 
which  views  the  basal  power  as  blind  does  make  trust  in  the 
mind  impossible  in  a  variety  of  ways.  From  what  we  have 
previously  said,  it  follows  that  in  such  a  system  our  thoughts, 
etc.,  would  represent  no  inner  necessity  of  reason,  but  only 
the  outcome  of  the  mechanism.  This  is  not  determined  by 
our  thoughts,  but  determines  them.  But  we  see  the  mech- 
anism determining  different  persons  to  the  most  different 
views ;  and  at  once  the  question  arises,  What  in  such  a  sys- 
tem is  the  test  of  truth?  If  we  allow  that  truth  must  be 
consistent,  and  otherwise  all  reasoning  is  at  an  end,  oppos- 
ing views  cannot  both  be  true.  It  would  follow  that  rela- 
tive frequency  and  generality  is  the  only  test  of  truth. 
Thus  we  should  be  led  to  the  ancient  test  of  the  consensus 
of  the  human  mind  as  the  final  court  of  appeal.  But  in 
such  a  case  we  should  have  divers  grounds  for  scepticism. 
Who  would  assure  us  that  the  blind  power  is  not  oftener 
mistaken  than  not  ?  We  should  expect  nothing  better  from 
blindness.  Certainly,  in  most  matters,  the  majority  do  not 
possess  the  truth.  Moreover,  we  cannot  allow  the  common 
consent  of  mankind  as  final  without  being  led  at  once  to 
theism,  and  retribution,  and  a  future  life ;  all  of  which  no- 
tions are  incompatible  with  our  premises.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  cannot  deny  the  appeal  to  common  consent  with- 
out taking  refuge  in  pure  volition  and  self-conceit.  In 
short,  whether  we  allow  it  or  deny  it,  we  are  equally  in- 
volved in  scepticism. 

At  first  sight  the  last  paragraph  will  seem  to  be  inconclu- 
sive from  confounding  different  things — namely,  the  general 
laws  of  thinking  with  detailed  opinions.  Common  consent 


168  METAPHYSICS. 

is  decisive  for  the  former,  but  meaningless  for  the  latter. 
Detailed  opinions  are  not  to  be  judged  by  their  frequency, 
but  by  the  mental  character  and  opportunities  of  those  who 
hold  them.  This  distinction  would  be  valid  for  a  system 
which  allowed  the  mind  a  power  of  ruling  its  thoughts  ac- 
cording to  an  order  of  reason ;  but  it  is  quite  meaningless 
here.  We  must  remember  that  in  this  system  our  thoughts 
are  products  of  necessity,  and  our  conclusions  also  are  not 
drawn  by  ourselves ;  they  are  thrust  into  the  mind  by  the 
necessary  on-going  of  the  great  automaton.  Indeed,  the 
mind  itself  is  nothing  but  a  sum  of  thoughts  and  other 
mental  states.  As  such,  they  represent  simply  what  the 
state  of  the  mechanism  is  at  present.  If  the  mechanism 
should  vary,  the  thought  and  conclusion  would  vary.  What- 
ever, then,  the  mechanism  allows  is  logical ;  the  illogical  is 
that  which  it  does  not  allow.  The  distinction  between  truth 
and  error  vanishes  completely.  There  is  no  absolute  truth, 
and  there  is  no  absolute  error ;  but  everything  is  truth  or  er- 
ror according  to  the  state  of  the  mechanism.  In  fact,  if  the 
theory  were  true,  reasoning,  as  a  self-centred,  self-verifying 
process,  would  be  impossible  altogether.  But  if,  in  spite  of 
the  theory,  we  retain  any  trust  in  reason,  the  first  conclusion 
which  reason  draws  from  the  theory  is  that  reason  is  totally 
untrustworthy.  We  have  before  seen  that  the  theory  breaks 
down  consciousness ;  now  we  see  that  it  breaks  down  reason 
itself.  At  the  beginning  of  modern  philosophy  Descartes 
raised  the  question,  How  is  error  possible?  thougli  from  a 
different  standpoint.  We  answer,  (1)  error  is  possible  as  a 
conception  only  as  there  is  an  absolute  truth  of  reason  and 
being ;  for  error  implies  a  departure  from  the  truth ;  and 
(2)  error  is  possible  only  through  the  fact  of  freedom,  or 
through  the  peculiar  relation  of  will  to  intelligence.  If  our 
faculties  are  not  made  for  truth  they  cannot  be  trusted. 
But  if  they  are  so  made,  how  can  they  go  astray  ?  If  we 
have  trustworthy  faculties,  which  we  may  carelessly  use  or 
wilfully  misuse,  we  can  explain  error  without  discrediting  our 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  1£9 

mental  powers,  but  not  otherwise.  On  any  other  supposition 
truth  and  error  disappear  as  baseless  ideal  distinctions,  and 
actuality  is  all.  Either,  then,  we  must  allow  that  the  basal 
power  is  intelligent,  or  we  must  confess  that  science  and 
philosophy  are  impossible.  But  power,  guided  by  inner  in- 
telligence, is  what  we  mean  by  will.  If  there  is  to  be  any 
trust  in  thought  and  its  products  we  must  confess  that  the 
ultimate  causality  of  nature  is  a  causality  of  will.  Whoever 
finds  fault  with  this  conclusion  is  earnestly  requested  to 
show  how  its  denial  is  consistent  with  trust  in  consciousness 
and  reason.  And  as  philosophy  can  never  be  allowed  to 
commit  suicide,  it  is  bound  to  take  those  views  which  are 
consistent  with  its  own  existence.  Hence  philosophy,  when 
it  understands  its  own  conditions,  must  always  be  theistic. 

From  this  standpoint  we  advance  to  consider  the  general 
relation  of  freedom  to  intelligence.  It  may  still  occur  to  us 
that  the  affirmation  of  intelligence  is  compatible  with  au- 
tomatism ;  and  hence  it  becomes  necessary  to  point  out  that 
intelligence  and  the  belief  in  freedom  stand  or  fall  together. 
It  is  one  of  the  misfortunes  of  the  doctrine  of  freedom  that 
it  has  commonly  been  considered  with  reference  to  moral 
action  only.  In  this  field,  interests,  passions,  and  the  various 
selfish  sentiments  are  very  prominent,  and  obscure  the  real 
nature  of  the  question.  ISTow  by  freedom  is  meant,  not  a 
power  of  acting  without  or  apart  from  motives,  but  simply 
a  power  of  choosing  an  end  or  law,  and  governing  one's  self 
accordingly.  This  power  appears  in  its  purest  form  in  the 
passionless  operations  of  the  intellect.  It  has  greater  sig- 
nificance and  sublirner  illustration  in  the  moral  realm  ;  but 
it  nowhere  appears  so  distinctly  as  in  thought  itself.  In  re- 
flecting upon  our  purely  intellectual  life  we  see  two  proc- 
esses going  on,  one  of  association,  or  of  mental  mechanism, 
and  one  of  thinking.  The  former  brings  to  us  ideas  in  any 
and  every  order,  just  as  they  have  been  experienced,  or  as 
chance  associations  have  been  set  up.  In  dream  and  reverie 
we  have  almost  pure  specimens  of  this  activity.  In  think- 


170  METAPHYSICS. 

ing  we  have  an  activity  of  another  kind.  Here  the  mind 
interferes  with  the  mechanical  processes  of  association,  and 
aims  to  reduce  its  chance  order  to  the  higher  order  of  rea- 
son. The  ideas  are  no  longer  suffered  to  come  and  go  at 
random,  but  the  fitting  are  detained  and  the  unfitting  are 
excluded,  until  the  mind  reaches  a  rational  connection.  In 
none  of  its  activities  is  the  mind  so  conscious  of  self-control 
as  in  this.  It  rules  itself  according  to  a  preconceived  end 
or  law,  and  excludes  all  that  does  not  harmonize  with  it. 
Of  course  this  does  not  mean  that  the  inind  can  coerce  the 
conclusions  of  reason,  but  it  does  mean  that  in  order  to  reach 
any  sound  conclusion  it  must  be  able  to  rule  its  activities 
with  reference  to  the  conclusion  to  be  reached.  In  a  me- 
chanical doctrine  of  mind,  on  the  other  hand,  the  conclusion 
is  coerced.  It  represents  no  inner  necessity  of  reason,  and 
no  insight  by  the  rational  mind,  but  only  the  outcome  of 
the  mechanism.  If  we  deny  the  substantiality  of  mind, 
then  the  conclusion  is  only  the  symbol  of  a  certain  state  of 
the  physical  mechanism.  If  we  allow  mind  to  be  real,  but 
explain  all  its  processes  by  association,  then  a  conclusion 
represents  the  resultant  of  certain  mental  states.  Nothing 
depends  on  reason,  but  only  on  the  mental  states ;  and 
these,  for  all  we  know,  may  become  anything  whatever,  with 
the  result  of  changing  the  conclusion  to  any  other  whatever. 
But  this  conclusion  is  the  extreme  of  scepticism.  Further, 
we  know  from  experience  that  the  law  of  reason,  as  the  in- 
ner law  of  our  thinking,  does  not  of  itself  insure  sound  con- 
clusions. The  mind  must  adopt  or  accept  the  law,  and  rule 
itself  accordingly.  In  particular,  it  must  be  on  its  guard 
against  the  influence  of  habit  and  association,  which  so  often 
put  on  a  misleading  appearance  of  reason.  And  this  it  does 
only  as  it  varies  its  standpoints,  and  reserves  its  conclusions 
until  the  inner  connection  of  reason  is  reached.  "Without 
this  power  there  can  be  no  trust  in  reason  whatever.  Hence 
we  say  that  freedom  and  intelligence  stand  or  fall  together. 
Freedom  and  finality  are  necessary  principles,  if  there  is 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  171 

to  be  any  philosophy  or  science.  Their  necessity,  however, 
is  different  from  that  of  the  laws  of  thought.  Some  have 
sought  to  put  finality  and  causality  on  the  same  foundation 
of  necessity,  and  have  called  them  both  intuitions.  The 
necessity  of  freedom  and  purpose,  however,  is  not  given  in 
direct  intuition,  or  in  simple  inspection  of  our  consciousness ; 
it  is  a  deduced  necessity.  They  are  necessary  if  there  is  to 
be  any  proper  rationality ;  but  it  is  not  necessary  that  there 
should  be  rationality.  They  are  then  necessary  to  thought, 
but  are  not  necessary  in  thought.  We  cannot  think  at  all 
without  the  laws  of  thought,  and  we  cannot  save  ourselves 
from  scepticism  without  the  other  principles  of  freedom  and 
finality. 

It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  advantage  of  discussing 
the  question  from  the  standpoint  of  thought,  that  most  fa- 
talists have  allowed  freedom  in  thinking.  They  have  ad- 
mitted the  possibility  of  thinking  twice,  and  of  suspending 
both  judgment  and  action.  They  have  also  at  least  tacitly 
allowed  the  distinction  between  thinking  and  the  processes 
of  association.  The  most  striking  illustration  is  given  by 
the  associationalists  themselves.  The  fact  that  they  have 
been  able  to  turn  back  upon  the  principle  of  association,  and 
resist  and  expose  its  misleading  tendency,  is  a  sufficient  proof 
that  thought  is  independent  of  association.  Association 
does  not  explain  disintegration.  This  arises  only  as  thought 
turns  upon  itself,  considered  as  a  product  of  association  ;  and 
by  applying  its  own  standard  of  judgment  criticises  and  re- 
jects the  associational  outcome.  The  existence  of  the  asso- 
ciational  theory,  then,  is  a  complete  disproof  of  its  claim  to 
usurp  the  place  of  thought.  A  mind  subject  to  association 
only  would  never  criticise. 

Our  plan  has  not  been  to  discuss  the  reality  of  freedom, 
but  simply  to  indicate  its  relation  to  intelligence  in  general. 
A  common  notion  is,  that  freedom  is  an  anomalous  some- 
thing which  can  be  allowed  only  in  the  face  of  reason  and 
science.  We  think  the  opposite  is  plain.  Without  allow- 


172  METAPHYSICS. 

ing  the  reality  of  freedom  there  can  be  no  trust  in  either 
reason  or  science.  If  the  basal  power  be  automatic,  reason 
is  overthrown  ;  and  if  we  are  automatic,  reason  is  also  over- 
thrown. In  considering  the  possibility  of  rational  knowl- 
edge, two  points  have  to  be  considered,  (1)  the  nature  of  the 
fundamental  being,  and  (2)  the  nature  of  the  finite  knower. 
Our  conclusion  is,  that  we  must  view  both  as  free  and  intel- 
ligent. 

"We  said  in  our  introduction  that  one  of  the  great  prob- 
lems of  philosophy  is,  How  is  knowledge  possible?  that  is 
to  determine  the  implications  of  the  notion  of  knowledge, 
assumed  to  be  possible.  We  have  made  a  few  determina- 
tions in  the  present  chapter.  In  general,  it  is  sufficient  for 
the  disproof  of  a  theory  that  it  overturns  the  native  and 
universal  trust  of  reason  in  itself,  and  makes  knowledge  im- 
possible. Scepticism  will  never  take  permanent  possession 
of  the  human  mind.  Contact  with  reality  and  the  instincts 
of  reason  will  effect  a  cure,  if  the  mind  have  not  lost  the 
power  of  recovery.  There  are  minds  which,  like  a  sick 
stomach,  can  keep  nothing  down ;  but  such  a  state  is  path- 
ologic, and  has  no  argumentative  significance.  Certain 
forms  of  doubt,  like  parasites,  flourish  most  on  degeneration 
and  weakness ;  or,  like  certain  diseases,  they  spring  from 
poverty  of  the  blood.  In  all  such  cases  the  cure  must  be 
indirect,  and  can  be  found  only  in  a  general  bracing  up  of 
the  system.  We  are  content,  then,  to  pass  by  the  sceptic, 
and  leave  our  argument  with  such  as  believe  that  reason  and 
knowledge  are  possible.  Our  claim  is,  that  they  are  possible 
only  on  the  basis  of  theism  and  freedom. 

A  word  of  caution  must  be  uttered  in  closing.  The  value 
of  this  result  is  chiefly  formal.  It  satisfies  the  mind  in  its 
demand  for  unity  and  explanation,  and  it  saves  us  from 
scepticism.  Its  practical  value  is  slight.  We  shall  always 
have  to  resort  to  experience  to  learn  both  the  purposes  of 
the  system  and  the  method  of  their  realization.  Purpose 
itself  is  never  causal,  but  is  only  the  norm  according  to 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INFINITE.  173 

which  the  agent  which  forms  it  directs  itself.  Hence  a  com- 
plete knowledge  of  the  purposes  of  the  cosmical  movement 
would  leave  us  in  complete  ignorance  of  the  efficient  causes 
which  realize  it.  But  it  is  of  great  importance  to  be  able 
to  hold  that  the  basal  causality  of  the  universe  is  one  of  will 
and  purpose,  even  when  we  cannot  see  its  purposes  nor  the 
mode  of  their  realization. 


/  1 1 

x-*     <$-*  Jv*-*-^7l 


fart  H. 

COSMOLOGY 


PART  II.— COSMOLOGY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

SPACE. 

WE  have  confined  our  attention  thus  far  to  the  notion  of 
being  in  itself;  and  the  results  reached  are  valid  for  any 
and  all  being.  No  notice  has  been  taken  of  specific  differ- 
ences or  of  various  forms  of  manifestation  ;  but  those  points 
alone  have  been  dwelt  upon  in  which  all  real  things  must 
agree.  We  now  leave  these  most  general  considerations  and 
pass  to  the  cosmological  manifestation  of  being.  The  last 
chapter  shows,  however,  that  we  have  no  purpose  of  deduc- 
ing this  manifestation  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  being. 
There  is  no  apriori  road  whatever  from  ontology  to  cos- 
mology. We  must  wait  for  experience  to  reveal  not  only 
the  particular,  but  also  the  general,  forms  of  cosmological 
manifestation.  Our  method,  therefore,  will  be  critical  as 
usual.  We  start  from  the  common-sense  theory  of  a  world 
of  material  things  with  the  idea  of  seeing  what  rectification 
the  previous  discussion  and  further  anatysis  may  make  nec- 
essary. But  in  the  popular  theory  the  world  of  things  is 
located  in  space,  and  has  a  history  in  time.  Space  and  time 
constitute  a  kind  of  pre-condition  of  the  world ;  or  a  deter- 
mining principle  of  all  cosmological  manifestation.  The 
things  which  are  in  space  and  time  might  have  been  alto- 
gether different.  Many  widely  diverse  systems  are  possible 
12 


178  METAPHYSICS. 

in  thought ;  but,  for  all  alike,  space  and  time  would  have 
been  conditioning  principles.  This  is  the  position  which 
space  and  time  hold  in  spontaneous  thought,  and  hence  it 
is  necessary  to  consider  them.  The  present  chapter  deals 
with  space,  and  the  inquiry  is,  What  is  the  metaphysical  nat- 
ure of  space,  and  how  is  it  related  to  the  things  which  are 
said  to  be  in  it?  We  exclude,  for  the  present,  all  inquiry 
into  the  psychological  genesis  of  the  idea  as  irrelevant  to 
the  present  question.  .It  was  pointed  out  in  the  Introduc- 
tion that  the  history  of  a  notion  never  decides  the  meaning 
and  validity  of  the  notion  after  it  appears ;  and  that  these 
points  can  be  determined  only  by  analyzing  and  reflecting 
upon  the  content  of  the  idea  as  it  is  given  in  consciousness. 
Neither  the  geometrical  nor  the  metaphysical  properties  of 
space  can  be  discovered  by  either  physiological  or  psycho- 
logical theorizing. 

In  Part  III.  we  expect  to  show  that  space,  whatever  else  it 
may  be,  is  a  principle  of  intuition.  As  such,  it  is  primarily 
a  subjective  principle  rather  than  an  objective  fact.  But 
we  also  expect  to  show  that  all  perception  is  but  an  unfold- 
ing of  the  inner  nature  of  the  mind  upon  occasion  of  cer- 
tain excitations.  It  is  the  reaction  of  the  mind  against  ex- 
ternal action.  But  as  this  fact  does  not  warrant  us  in  deny- 
ing the  object  perceived,  so  neither  does  the  necessary  sub- 
jectivity of  space,  as  a  principle  of  intuition,  warrant  us  in 
denying  its  objective  reality  as  a  fact.  For,  however  real 
space  might  be,  it  must  also  be  given  in  the  mind  as  a  men- 
tal principle,  in  order  that  the  objective  space  should  be 
known  to  exist.  Since  the  time  of  Kant  there  has  been  al- 
most universal  oversight  at  this  point.  Kant  himself  is  not 
as  guilty  as  his  followers.  Although  at  times  he  inclines  to 
deny  the  objectivity  of  space  on  the  principle  of  parsimony, 
yet  finally  he  rests  his  denial  of  independent  space  on  the 
antinomies  which  the  assumption  involves.  But  his  follow- 
ers have  generally  thought  it  sufficient  to  point  out  that 
space  must  be  a  mental  principle,  and  they  have  failed  to 


SPACE.  179 

show  that  it  cannot  be  anything  else.  The  argument  de- 
mands that  space  be  shown  to  be  a  mental  principle,  and  to 
be  incapable  of  objective  existence.  For,  as  said,  the  fact 
that  space  is  a  subjective  principle  does  not  disprove  that  it 
may  be  objective,  any  more  than  the  fact  that  our  percep- 
tions are  all  subjective  acts  disproves  that  they  may  also  re- 
produce objective  and  independent  facts.  In  both  cases 
the  settlement  of  the  question  must  rest  upon  an  analysis 
of  the  nature  of  the  object.  If  reflection  upon  the  content 
of  the  space-idea  should  reveal  it  to  be  incapable  of  objective 
existence,  then,  and  only  then,  would  its  subjectivity  be  es- 
tablished. The  one  thing  which  the  subjectivity  of  space, 
as  a  principle  of  intuition  does  accomplish,  is  to  deprive  the 
argument  for  its  objectivity  from  the  alleged  necessity  of 
the  intuition  of  all  its  force.  If  space  be  such  a  principle, 
of  course  we  cannot  intuite  things  apart  from  it;  but  the 
necessity  would  lie  in  the  nature  of  the  mental  subject,  and 
would  equally  exist  whatever  the  nature  of  the  object.  The 
nature  of  our  sensibility  determines  us  to  perceive  vibrating 
objects  as  colored,  and  we  cannot  perceive  them  otherwise ; 
but  the  necessity  is  in  ourselves.  On  this  account  the  argu- 
ment that  things  are  colored  because  we  must  perceive  them 
as  such,  loses  all  weight ;  and  on  the  same  account  the  argu- 
ment that  things  are  in  space  because  we  must  intuite  them 
spatially,  loses  all  its  weight.  The  result  is,  logically,  a  drawn 
battle  between  the  two  views,  even  if  the  doctrine  of  the  ob- 
jectivity of  space  were  self -consistent.  The  idealist  could 
show  that  there  is  no  need  to  assume  an  objective  space  to 
explain  our  intuition ;  and  the  realist  could  show  that  the 
subjectivity  of  space  does  not  exclude  its  objectivity,  and 
that  the  latter  view  is  far  more  in  harmony  with  spontane- 
ous thought.  To  overturn  this  balance  of  opinion  and  reach 
a  conclusion,  it  is  necessary  to  examine  the  content  of  the 
space-idea. 

What,  then,  is  space,  considered  as  an  object?      Three 
views  are  possible.     (1.)   "We  may  view  it  as  something 


180  METAPHYSICS. 

quite  sui  generis,  independent  of  all  things,  and  of  all  that 
we  understand  by  being.  (2.)  We  may  view  it  as  a  peculiar 
order  of  relations  among  things,  but  independent  of  any 
thinker ;  that  is,  we  may  think  of  it  as  a  system  of  objective 
relations.  (3.)  We  may  view  it  as  being  only  the  form  of 
objective  intuition.  The  last  view  is  double.  We  may  re- 
gard this  form  as  the  outcome  of  a  mental  principle  which 
is  founded  in  the  nature  of  mind ;  and  we  may  regard  it  as 
the  adventitious  product  of  association  working  upon  sense- 
experience.  In  the  latter  case,  the  space-idea  corresponds  to 
no  objective  fact,  and  is  not  the  outcome  of  any  mental  law, 
but  is  only  a  subjective  accident.  This  is  the  view  of  Mill, 
Bain,  and  Herbart.  The  latter,  especially,  has  sought  to  show 
that  any  being  capable  of  having  presentations,  must  develop 
the  space-intuition  as  a  necessity  of  the  psychological  mech- 
anism. The  other  view,  which  makes  space  an  apriori 
mental  principle,  is  essentially  that  of  Kant.  But  as  both 
views  agree  in  affirming  the  subjectivity  of  space,  we  have 
no  call  at  present  to  decide  between  them.  Our  present 
inquiry  is  concerned  with  the  decision  between  the  subjec- 
tivity and  the  objectivity  of  space. 

At  first  sight  the  first  of  the  three  views  mentioned  is 
the  true  one.  Space  is  not  a  thing,  but  the  place  of  things, 
and  as  such  is  a  necessary  condition  of  their  existence ;  for 
things  must  have  place  in  order  to  exist.  At  the  same  time 
space  is  not  a  nothing,  but  a  peculiar  kind  of  existence, 
which  can  be  described  only  in  terms  of  itself.  Something 
and  nothing,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  terms,  do  not  form 
a  complete  disjunction  ;  for,  besides  these,  a  third  conception, 
space,  is  also  possible ;  and  this  cannot  be  defined  in  terms 
of  the  other  two.  This  is  the  view  of  common-sense ;  and 
it  seems  forced  upon  us  by  the  simplest  experience.  This 
view  finds  its  expression  in  the  oft-used  phrase,  that  if  all 
being  were  away,  space  would  still  remain  with  all  its  prop- 
erties unchanged.  Full  or  empty,  space  remains  the  same, 
changeless  and  eternal.  For  though  space  conditions  being, 


SPACE.  181 

being  does  not  condition  space.  When  the  intuitionist  is 
looking  around  for  a  striking  illustration  of  the  impossible 
with  which  to  confound  the  empiricist,  he  often  lights  upon 
the  statement  that  God  himself  can  neither  make  nor  un- 
make space,  or  do  other  than  submit  to  its  necessity.  The 
proposition  frequently  recurs  in  philosophy  to  regard  space 
as  a  datum  objective  to  all  being,  and  with  which  being 
must  get  along  as  best  it  may.  Space  is  not  a  system  of  re- 
lations, for  relations  are  changing  while  space  is  changeless. 
It  is  not  a  property  of  things;  for  it  is  independent  of 
things.  It  cannot  be  identified  with  any  actual  form,  for 
it  is  rather  the  formless  principle  of  all  form.  It  is  the 
mysterious  background  of  forms  and  relations,  and  is  iden- 
tical with  none.  In  this  view,  which  is  the  view  of  com- 
mon-sense, space  appears  as  a  fathomless  and  independent 
necessity,  to  which  even  the  basal  reality  must  submit. 

At  first  sight,  this  view  is  sun-clear ;  but  on  closer  inspec- 
tion it  is  seen  to  be  full  of  difficult}".  To  begin  with,  the 
conception  of  space  as  an  all-containing  form  is  an  incon- 
sistent metaphor  borrowed  from  our  sense -experience. 
Forms  must  always  be  forms  of  something;  and  when 
there  is  no  reality  to  produce  and  limit  the  form,  the  form 
exists  only  in  imagination.  When  one  vessel  contains  an- 
other, it  is  not  the  form  which  contains,  but  the  vessel ;  and 
if  we  cancel  the  reality  of  the  latter  there  is  no  more  con- 
taining. Space,  then,  as  an  all-containing  form,  is  simply  an 
inconsistent  imagination.  Nor  would  it  help  us  to  say  that 
the  form  in  this  case  is  the  form  of  space ;  for  this  would 
be  to  confess  that  space,  simply  as  form,  is  nothing.  Again, 
the  asserted  reality  of  space  cannot  be  maintained  without 
conflicting  with  the  space -intuition  itself.  For  space,  as 
real,  must  come  under  the  law  of  reality  in  general.  Now 
in  spontaneous  thought,  space  is  distinguished  from  things 
on  the  one  hand,  and  from  nothing  on  the  other ;  and  in 
this  respect  common-sense  is  much  more  rational  than  the 
philosophy  which  affirms  that  space  is  simply  nothing ;  and 


182  METAPHYSICS. 

then  distinguishes  it  from  other  nothings,  supplies  it  with 
attributes,  and  affirms  its  existence.  But  if  this  distinction 
between  space  and  nothing  is  to  be  maintained,  space  must 
be  able  in  some  way  to  assert  itself  as  a  determining  factor 
in  the  system  of  things,  ^o  matter  how  nameless  or  inef- 
fable a  substratum  we  may  assume  for  space,  this  demand 
cannot  be  escaped.  It  is  vain  to  object  that  something  and 
nothing  do  not  form  a  complete  disjunction,  for  there  can 
never  be  any  warrant  for  admitting  into  a  thought-system 
realities  which  confessedly  do  nothing,  and  which  therefore 
can  be  known  only  by  revelation  or  by  pure  faith.  To 
escape  this  absurdity,  we  must  endow  space  with  activity, 
and  regard  it  as  a  peculiar  kind  of  thing  in  interaction  with 
other  things.  Without  doing  this,  it  is  impossible  to  distin- 
guish space  from  pure  nothingness,  and  the  affirmation  of 
its  existence  becomes  absurd.  If  space  be  real,  it  cannot  be 
viewed  as  a  powerless  emptiness,  but  only  as  an  active  some- 
thing. But  this  conclusion  brings  the  space-intuition  into 
contradiction  with  itself ;  for  space  is  not  a  thing,  but  the 
place  of  things. 

"We  reach  this  conclusion  as  the  only  way  of  distinguish- 
ing between  space  and  nothingness ;  we  reach  it  equally  by 
considering  the  functions  which  are  ascribed  to  space.  In 
particular,  space  is  said  to  condition  things  and  their  activi- 
ties. But  this  language  acquires  a  meaning  only  as  space  is 
viewed  as  possessing  agency.  For  whatever  thing  condi- 
tions another  must  act  upon  it,  and  thus  comes  under  the 
notion  of  thing  itself.  A  curious  attempt  to  escape  this 
conclusion  is  sometimes  made  by  calling  space  a  negative 
condition  of  existence.  If  there  were  no  place  to  put  things, 
they  could  not  be  made.  But  this  statement  merely  means 
that  if  a  thing  is  to  exist,  its  existence  must  not  be  prevent- 
ed. The  difficulty  is  in  no  way  the  lack  of  place,  but  the 
presence  of  positive  resistance.  If  this  were  away,  air  things 
might  coexist  in  a  point.  Again,  it  is  said  that  space  need 
not  be  regarded  as  dynamically,  but  only  as  logically,  deter- 


SPACE.  183 

mining  things.  This  is  intelligible  when  space  is  viewed  as 
a  mental  principle  and  no  external  reality,  but  not  other- 
wise. In  studying  causation,  we  saw  that  logical  determi- 
nation is  only  a  thought-movement,  and  must  be  replaced  in 
reality  by  a  dynamic  determination.  If  now  space,  as  an 
objective  fact,  is  to  exert  any  influence  on  things,  it  must 
act  upon  them,  and  must  be  acted  upon  by  them.  Bnt  this 
makes  it  a  thing  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  and  de- 
stroys its  character  as  space.  If  space  is  really  to  determine  ' 
things,  it  must  be  as  a  thing  and  not  as  space,  or  it  must 
be  as  a  principle  in  being,  and  not  as  something  standing 
over  against  it. 

The  conclusion  that  space,  if  real,  is  active,  emerges  from 
another  standpoint.  An  extended  body  exists  only  as  its 
parts  exist.  This  is  true,  whether  we  regard  the  body  as 
atomic  or  as  continuous.  If  the  body  have  an  atomic  con- 
stitution, the  truth  is  self-evident ;  for  then  the  body  is  but 
the  aggregate  of  the  parts,  and  exists  in  them  just  as  num- 
ber exists  only  in  its  component  units.  But  if  the  body  be 
viewed  as  continuous  and  not  compounded,  its  existence  in 
space  allows  us  to  divide  the  volume  into  different  parts, 
each  of  which  exists  in  its  own  space,  and  is  distinct  from 
all  the  other  parts.  Thus  the  body,  though  continuous,  ap- 
pears as  the  integral  of  its  parts,  and  exists  only  as  these  parts 
exist.  But  it  cannot  exist  as  the  sum  of  these  parts  without 
positing  an  interaction  among  the  parts.  That  the  part  B 
shall  maintain  itself  between  and  against  A  and  C,  it  must 
be  able  to  prescribe  to  A  and  C  their  positions  relative  to 
itself.  The  same  is  true  for  all  other  parts;  and  the  con- 
clusion is,  that  the  extended  body,  though  continuous,  is  yet 
a  complex  of  interacting  forces.  This  conclusion  remains 
valid  even  if  the  body  be  indivisible ;  for  such  indivisibility 
would  not  rest  upon  a  true  unity  of  the  thing,  but  only  upon 
the  greatness  of  the  cohesion  between  the  parts.  The  body 
would  still  be  a  system  of  interacting  forces.  Hence  no 
body  which  exists  extended  in  space  can  be  a  unit.  It  will 


184  METAPHYSICS. 

alwajs  be  possible  to  distinguish  separate  points  in  the  vol- 
ume of  the  thing ;  and  these  can  be  held  together  and  apart 
only  as  these  points  are  made  the  centres  of  cohesive  and  re- 
pulsive forces.  But  in  order  that  a  thing  shall  be  a  true 
unit,  it  must  allow  no  distinction  of  parts,  and  no  activities 
which  are  activities  of  parts  only.  But  this  distinction  of 
parts  will  always  be  possible  so  long  as  a  thing  is  regarded 
as  having  real  extension.  Similar  reasoning  applies  to  space. 
If  space  be  real  and  extended,  its  several  parts  must  also  be 
real,  and  space  can  have  no  proper  unity.  It  must  be  an 
integral  or  a  sum,  and  its  parts  must  be  its  real  constituents. 
We  do  not  help  ourselves  by  saying  that  space  is  infinite, 
and  hence  cannot  be  made  up  of  finite  parts ;  for  if  space  be 
real,  each  smallest  volume  is  a  real  part  of  space.  Allowing 
space  to  be  infinite,  no  finite  volume  will  have  any  appre- 
ciable ratio  to  the  whole  of  space ;  but  there  is  a  difference 
between  a  ratio  and  a  part.  Each  cubic  inch  of  extension 
is  a  true  part  of  space ;  and  space  exists  only  as  these  parts 
exist.  Nor  is  it  of  any  use  to  say  that  space  is  continuous, 
and  that  our  units  of  volume  are  only  arbitrary  divisions; 
for  between  any  two  points  there  is  a  certain  amount  of 
space  which  is  distinct  from  the  space  between  any  other 
two  points  whatever.  But  the  relation  of  these  parts  is 
fixed  and  changeless.  Things  may  change  their  place,  but 
every  point  in  space  remains  in  changeless  relations  to  every 
other  point  in  space.  Spaces,  like  times,  can  be  neither  in- 
terchanged nor  displaced.  The  point  B  will  always  be 
found  between  A  and  C,  and  all  alike  are  immovable.  But 
if  space  be  real,  this  implies  that  the  several  points  shall 
mutually  determine  one  another's  position ;  and  if  this  is  to 
take  place  in  reality,  it  implies  an  interaction  between  the 
points.  It  is  of  no  avail  to  say  that  space  is  a  unit,  and 
that  points  are  only  arbitrarily  chosen  positions  in  the  unity 
of  space;  for  (1)  space  as  extended  cannot  be  a  unit,  but 
only  a  whole ;  and  (2)  if  extended  space  be  real,  then  the 
system  of  points  and  parts  is  equally  real.  Each  smallest 


SPACE.  185 

volume,  therefore,  must  be  fixed  in  position  and  content. 
It  is  absolute  as  to  its  own  existence,  but  determined  in  its 
relations  to  other  volumes.  But  if  these  relations  are  to  be 
other  than  logical,  and  are  to  have  other  than  a  thought- 
existence,  these  volumes  must  be  dynamically  determinant  of 
one  another.  The  paradox  of  this  claim  is  monstrous ;  but 
the  assertion  of  a  real  space  leads  to  it.  The  reality  of  space 
implies  the  reality  of  its  parts ;  and  the  impossibility  of  in- 
terchanging these  parts  can  rest  only  on  a  mutual  determina- 
tion. Of  course,  it  is  urged  that  this  determination  is  log- 
ical ;  but  logical  determination  exists  only  in  thought.  In 
objective  reality,  determination  must  be  dynamic. 

Thus  it  appears  in  various  ways  that  the  attempt  to  make 
space  real,  and  yet  distinct  both  from  things  and  from  noth- 
ing, is  a  failure.  Either  we  must  make  it  a  pure  nothing 
in  reality,  or  we  must  make  it  a  thing  in  interaction  with 
itself  and  with  other  things.  Both  of  these  views  are  un- 
tenable, and  the  former  is  absurd.  This  view,  when  held, 
is  commonly  a  play  on  words  which  makes  nothing  equal  to 
no  thing.  To  the  question,  What  would  remain  if  things 
were  away  ?  the  answer  is,  Nothing.  But  the  nothing  in 
this  case  means  only  no  thing;  as  appears  from  the  fact 
that  the  speculator  who  gives  this  wise  answer  forthwith 
proceeds  to  give  this  nothing  various  geometrical  properties, 
and  to  affirm  its  existence.  He  would  be  far  from  allowing 
the  identity  of  the  space-nothing  with  the  thing-nothing, 
or  with  the  mathematical  nothing ;  and  this  proves  that 
while  he  calls  space  nothing,  he  still  has  some  indefinite 
positive  existence  in  mind,  which  is  distinct  from  nothing, 
and  which  has  peculiar  properties  of  its  own.  But  if  we 
view  space  as  pure  nothing,  there  is  no  ground  for  distin- 
guishing it  from  any  other  nothing;  for  nothings  must  be 
indistinguishable.  There  is  also  no  ground  for  attributing 
attributes  to  it,  or  for  affirming  its  existence;  the  attribu- 
tion and  the  affirmation  would  be  alike  absurd.  But  the 
other  view,  which  makes  space  a  thing  in  interaction  with 


186  METAPHYSICS. 

itself  and  with  other  things,  is  as  far  from  the  common 
thought  as  is  the  doctrine  of  its  ideality.  Space  determines 
nothing;  but  things,  by  their  interaction,  determine  one 
another.  Things  are,  indeed,  in  space ;  but  the  space  which 
is  occupied  by  things  neither  affects  them  nor  is  affected  by 
them.  Things  and  space  coexist  in  mutual  and  absolute  in- 
difference. This  is  the  common  view  as  to  the  relation  of 
space  and  things.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  this  view 
than  the  doctrine  that  space  has  agency,  and  is  hence  a 
proper  thing.  But,  finally,  if  we  should  allow  such  a  strange 
notion  we  should  at  once  conflict  with  our  spontaneous  con- 
victions concerning  space  from  another  side.  Space  is  the 
place  of  things,  and  things  cannot  be  conceived  without 
space.  Hence,  if  we  make  space  a  thing,  we  need  another 
space  which  is  not  a  thing  in  which  it  may  exist.  When 
we  think  of  space  as  a  nameless  and  ineffable  existence,  we 
cannot  think  of  its  parts  as  implied  in  its  extension  without 
positing  another  space  in  which  the  former  exists.  But  this 
view  shuts  us  up  to  an  infinite  series,  or  an  endless  regress ; 
because  for  each  space,  viewed  as  thing,  we  have  to  posit 
an  empty  space  in  which  to  hold  it.  We  cannot,  then,  view 
space  as  pure  nothing,  and  we  cannot  regard  it  as  a  reality. 
The  former  view  is  absurd,  and  the  latter  is  inconsistent 
with  itself. 

A  second  difficulty  with  the  doctrine  which  regards  space 
as  real,  apart  from  things,  is  that  it  leads  to  a  hopeless  dual- 
ism of  first  principles.  If  space  be  a  reality  apart  from 
things,  it  is  something  uncreated  and  eternal.  No  one 
would  be  hardy  enough  to  maintain  a  proper  creation  of 
space  conceived  of  as  an  infinite  void,  for  no  meaning  can 
be  attached  to  the  phrase ;  indeed,  the  idea  itself  negatives 
creation.  Those  speculators  who  have  taught  a  creation  of 
space  have  generally  abandoned  the  common  conception, 
and  regarded  space  as  a  system  of  relations,  or  as  a  property 
of  things.  In  such  a  case,  the  creation  of  the  things  would 
be  the  creation  of  space.  But  the  common  notion  of  an  in- 


SPACE.  187 

dependent  space  is  repugnant  to  creation,  for  the  necessity 
would  ever  pursue  us  of  positing  a  previous  space  for  the 
reception  of  the  created  one.  Accordingly,  spontaneous 
thought  has  always  regarded  space  as  one  of  the  eternal  and 
self-existent  necessities  which  even  God  himself  cannot  es- 
cape. But  this  view  is  contradicted  by  the  necessary  unity 
of  the  basal  reality.  English  and  American  thinkers,  in 
general,  have  paid  very  little  attention  to  the  general  prob- 
lem of  knowledge ;  and  hence,  as  pointed  out  in  a  previous 
chapter,  they  have  had  little  hesitation  in  allowing  any 
number  of  independent  principles.  Many  have  proposed 
to  view  space  and  time  as  mutually  independent,  and  as 
equally  independent  of  God ;  and  now  and  then  a  specula- 
tor proposes  to  add  matter  to  the  list.  Indeed,  the  material- 
ists generally  view  space,  time,  and  matter  as  mutually  in- 
dependent and  self-sufficient  existences.  But  we  have  seen, 
in  discussing  the  relation  of  the  infinite  to  the  system,  that 
all  principles  and  all  manifestation  alike  must  flow  from  the 
infinite,  and  that  the  infinite  must  be  one.  If  we  should 
posit  anything  aside  from  the  infinite  as  alike  independent, 
the  second  something  could  not  manifest  itself  in  our  sys- 
tem without  an  interaction  between  the  two.  But  this 
would  make  them  both  dependent,  and  would  force  us  to 
assume  some  other  being,  deeper  than  both,  as  their  com- 
mon source  or  foundation.  We  cannot,  then,  view  space 
and  being  as  mutually  independent;  for  in  that  case  being 
and  space  must  be  in  interaction,  if  space  is  to  affect  our 
system.  But  this  would  destroy  the  independence  of  both, 
and  would  also  make  space  an  active  thing,  and  not  space. 
It  is  conceivable  that  some  person  should  still  be  found  who 
might  think  it  enough  to  say  that  the  only  relation  between 
space  and  being  is,  that  being  is  in  space ;  but  if  they  be 
mutually  independent,  existence  in  space  can  have  no  sig- 
nificance for  being.  Both  being  and  space  would  go  on  in 
complete  indifference,  and  there  would  be  no  possibility  of 
communication  between  them.  In  that  case  no  meaning 


188  METAPHYSICS. 

whatever  could  be  attached  to  the  proposition  that  being  is 
in  space.  But  it  is  absurd  to  speak  of  being  as  dependent 
on  space,  and  hence  we  must  view  space  as  dependent  on  be- 
ing. But  it  is  impossible  to  view  space,  conceived  as  ex- 
tended emptiness,  as  created  or  dependent.  Hence  space 
cannot  be  viewed  as  such  emptiness,  but  must  be  in  some 
sense  a  principle  in  being  which  is  the  root  of  spatial  mani- 
festation. Instead  of  saying,  then,  that  being  is  in  space, 
we  must  rather  say  that  space  is  in  being.  It  is  strictly  im- 
possible to  regard  space  as  a  self-existent  reality,  for  the 
conclusions  reached  in  the  ontology  make  it  impossible  to 
posit  more  than  one  basal  and  independent  existence.  All 
else  is  a  consequence  of  this  one  reality,  either  as  a  creation 
or  as  a  principle  of  activity  and  manifestation.  But  space, 
as  commonly  conceived,  admits  of  no  creation.  If,  then, 
the  popular  thought  has  rightly  grasped  the  content  of  the 
space-idea,  we  can  view  space  only  as  some  principle  in  be- 
ing. 

A  final  objection  to  the  reality  of  space  may  be  men- 
tioned based  on  the  unity  of  being.  If  space  be  a  real 
objective  existence,  then  the  infinite,  or  rather  God,  is  in 
space,  and  possesses  bulk  and  diameter.  For  whatever  ex- 
ists in  space  must  exist  either  as  a  point  or  as  a  volume ; 
and  as  no  one  would  think  of  ascribing  a  punctual  existence 
to  God,  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  ascribe  volume.  But 
we  have  seen  in  a  previous  paragraph  that  nothing  possess- 
ing volume  in  space  can  be  a  unit.  Points  and  component 
volumes  can  always  be  distinguished  in  the  volume  of  such 
a  thing,  and  thus  the  thing  appears  as  made  up  of  parts. 
But  such  a  conception  applied  to  the  infinite  cancels  both 
its  unity  and  its  omnipresence.  That  which  is  omnipresent 
in  space  cannot  be  extended  in  space,  for  such  extension 
would  imply  merely  the  presence  of  the  being  part  for  part, 
or  volume  for  volume,  in  the  occupied  space.  Philosophy 
cannot  reconcile  the  necessary  unity  of  the  infinite  with  ex- 
istence in  space,  and  theology  cannot  reconcile  its  concep- 


SPACE.  189 

tion  of  the  non-spatial  mode  of  the  divine  existence  with 
existence  in  space.  But  if  space  be  real  it  must  be  infinite, 
and  God  must  exist  in  space,  and  the  indicated  conclusions 
must  follow.  These  conclusions  apply  especially  to  New- 
ton's and  Clarke's  conception  of  space.  They,  in  effect, 
made  it  an  attribute  of  God ;  and  Clarke  framed  a  theistic 
argument  on  this  conception.  But  this  view  simply  affirms 
extension  of  God,  and  leads  to  the  difficulties  mentioned. 

On  all  these  accounts,  therefore,  we  hold  that  space  can- 
not be  viewed  as  a  real  existence.  Its  reality  is  incompati- 
ble with  the  unity  of  being,  and  with  the  unity  of  all  prin- 
ciples in  one  fundamental  being.  To  maintain  its  reality, 
we  must  despatialize  it,  and  make  it  an  active  thing ;  and 
thus  we  conflict  with  our  space-intuition,  which  at  once  de- 
mands a  second  space  to  contain  the  first.  Finally,  we  can- 
not bring  space,  and  the  things  which  are  said  to  be  in  it, 
into  any  articulate  relation  without  positing  an  interaction 
between  them.  Thus  we  fall  back  into  the  previous  diffi- 
culty, and  despatialize  space.  The  declaration  that  space  is 
real,  and  that  things  are  in  it,  which  seemed  so  sun-clear, 
turns  out,  upon  inquiry,  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  unclear 
and  untenable. 

These  difficulties  have  led  many  thinkers  to  abandon  the 
common  notion  of  space  for  the  second  view  mentioned — 
that  space  is  a  certain  order  of  relations  among  realities. 
They  allow  that  space  apart  from  things  is  nothing,  and 
hence  that  if  things  were  away  there  would  be  strictly  noth- 
ing remaining.  But  things,  when  they  exist,  exist  in  cer- 
tain relations,  and  the  sum,  or  system,  of  these  relations 
constitutes  space.  Things,  then,  do  not  exist  in  space ;  but 
they  exist  in  space -relations,  and  with  space  -  properties. 
These  relations  and  properties  are  the  constituents  of  the 
space-idea,  and  by  abstraction  from  them  we  come  to  the 
notion  of  a  single  unitary  space.  But  while  space  is  thus 
dependent  upon  things,  these  relations  and  properties  of 


190  METAPHYSICS. 

thiDgs  are  quite  independent  of  our  thinking.  This  view, 
then,  agrees  with  the  preceding  one  in  regarding  these  rela- 
tions as  independent  of  the  mind,  and  as  objectively  exist- 
ing among  things. 

This  view  has  a  variety  of  forms,  and  in  all  of  them  it 
fails  to  get  clear  of  the  previous  view.  When  space  is  de- 
fined as  the  mutual  externality  of  things,  we  have  to  call  up 
the  general  form  of  space  to  understand  what  is  meant. 
There  is  an  externality  which  is  not  spatial,  the  externality 
of  individuality.  It  is  conceivable  that  different  elements 
should  be  so  related  to  one  another  as  to  coexist  in  the  same 
point  in  space ;  indeed,  it  has  often  been  proposed  to  con- 
ceive of  chemical  union  as  such  interpenetration.  In  such 
a  case  there  would  be  an  otherness  of  individuality  which 
would  not  be  spatial.  The  mutual  otheriuess'  of  spirits  alfco, 
though  commonly  represented  as  spatial,  is  properly  only  an 
otherness  of  personality,  and  space  has  no  necessary  part  in 
the  matter.  If,  now,  we  want  to  know  what  this  mutual  ex- 
ternality which  constitutes  space  may  be,  we  have  to  view 
it  as  the  externality  of  different  points  in  space.  We  can 
make  nothing  of  it  until  we  call  in  the  general  intuition  of 
one  extended  space.  Again,  the  spatial  relations  between 
things  is  not  a  relation  of  the  things,  but  a  relation  of  the 
spaces  in  which  the  things  exist ;  and  the  things,  by  existing 
in  those  spaces,  take  part  in  the  changeless  relations  which 
exist  between  them.  Space  -  relations  never  change,  but 
things  change  their  space-relations.  In  this  respect  tilings 
are  like  the  formless  reality  of  Plato,  which  flows  from  form 
to  form,  while  the  forms  and  their  relations  are  fixed  and 
eternal.  We  cannot,  then,  identify  space  with  any  actual 
system  of  relations  among  things,  for  this  would  make  space 
itself  constantly  changing.  It  would  also  exclude  the  myr- 
iad possible  space-relations  which  are  not  realized.  Space 
includes  all  actual  relations,  but  it  also  includes  much  more. 
It  is  no  particular  figure,  distance,  or  direction,  for  these 
are  individual  and  changing;  it  is  rather  that  underlying 


SPACE.  lyi 

principle  of  all  figure,  of  all  distance,  and  of  all  direction, 
which  conditions  all  alike,  but  which  cannot  be  identified 
with  any  or  with  all  of  them.  Space  itself  is  formless,  but 
contains  the  principle  of  all  form.  Here,  again,  to  under- 
stand what  these  terms  and  space-relations  may  mean,  we 
have  to  fall  back  upon  our  general  space-intuition ;  and  if 
these  relations  be  objectively  real,  space  is  objectively  real 
also.  Hence  the  view  that  space  is  only  a  system  of  objec- 
tive relations  among  things  does  not  meet  the  purpose  of  its 
invention,  but  implicitly  assumes  objective  and  independent 
space.  It  falls,  therefore,  with  its  support. 

In  the  next  place,  this  view  is  untenable,  because  relations 
as  such  are  incapable  of  objective  existence.  If  space  be 
only  a  system  of  relations,  it  is  necessarily  subjective.  The 
oversight  here  is  pardonable.  There  are  many  relations 
among  the  objects  of  thought  which  are  seen  to  be  univer- 
sal, and  because  they  do  not  exist  for  one  more  than  for  an- 
other we  say  that  they  exist  independently  of  the  mind. 
Thought  or  unthought,  the  same  relations  exist  among  reali- 
ties. But  all  we  can  properly  mean  is  that  these  relations 
will  always  be  affirmed  whenever  the  objects  are  conceived 
or  perceived.  Common-sense  attempts  to  secure  a  similar 
result  for  sense-qualities  by  declaring  that  they  exist,  wheth- 
er perceived  or  not.  But  reflection  shows  this  view  to  be 
absurd.  We  know  now  that  nothing  more  can  be  said  than 
that  these  sense-qualities  will  always  be  perceived  whenever 
the  proper  organism  appears.  We  may  not  say  that  things  in 
themselves  are  colored,  or  hot,  etc.,  but  only  that  these  qual- 
ities will  always  appear  in  consciousness  under  the  proper 
conditions,  which  conditions,  again,  are  not  individual,  but 
general.  In  perception  in  general  we  have  the  confidence 
that  all  perceptive  beings  will  affirm  the  same  relations  be- 
tween the  objects  of  perception,  and  this  confidence  we  ex- 
press by  saying  that  the  relations  themselves  are  indepen- 
dent of  all  thought.  Bat  this  view  we  regard  as  totally  un- 
tenable. Objectively  there  is  nothing  but  things  and  their 


192  METAPHYSICS. 

unpicturable  interactions.  All  that  is  more  than  this  is  con- 
tributed by  the  mind.  When  these  things  are  conceived  as 
a  manifold,  then  the  mind  relates  its  objects  as  conceived. 
But  the  relating  act  and  the  instituted  relation  are  purely 
subjective,  and  the  relation  has  no  existence  except  in  the 
relating  mind.  It  represents  no  ontological  predicate  of 
things,  but  the  aspect  of  things  in  thought.  It  is  with  the 
relations  of  things  as  with  those  of  number.  Apart  from 
mind,  there  is  and  can  be  no  number.  The  simple  and  un- 
related unit  is  the  only  thing  which  can  exist  in  itself.  The 
unit  becomes  number  only  through  the  unifying  act  of  a 
conscious  spirit ;  and  as  number  exists  as  such  only  in  con- 
sciousness, much  more  does  it  have  its  properties  only  in  the 
relating  mind.  Kelatable  everything  must  be  apart  from 
our  thought,  but  related  it  is  only  in  thought.  Oversight  of 
this  fact  is  at  the  bottom  of  many  of  the  puzzles  of  the 
Greek  sophists.  Thus  greater  and  less  are  predicates  which 
belong  to  an  object  only  when  compared  with  another.  To 
speak  of  the  absolutely  greater  or  less  is  quite  absurd.  They 
overlooked  this  fact,  and  hence  were  greatly  puzzled  by  such 
problems  as  the  following :  If  B  is  greater  than  A,  and  less 
than  C,  then  B  must  be  at  the  same  time  a  greater  and  a 
less.  Hence  everything  is  a  contradiction.  But  this  most 
brilliant  dialectic  disappears  when  we  remember  that  rela- 
tions exist  as  such  only  in  the  relating  mind.  In  itself,  B 
is  neither  greater  nor  less  than  A  or  C;  it  is  simply  and 
solely  B.  At  the  same  time,  it  may  be  such  that  when  A, 
B,  C  are  conceived  together  and  compared,  there  will  arise 
in  all  minds  the  judgment,  B  is  greater  than  A,  and  less 
than  C. 

This  necessary  subjectivity  of  relations  must  be  carefully 
distinguished  from  any  doctrine  which  makes  them  individ- 
ual or  arbitrary.  It  allows  the  possibility  that  objects  of 
thought  may  be  so  constituted  that  in  clear  thought  only 
certain  relations  can  be  instituted,  as  in  the  case  of  number 
and  geometrical  figures.  The  relations,  while  subjective, 


SPACE.  193 

may  be  also  necessary.  It  is  equally  possible  that  the  ob- 
jects of  thought  may  be  such  that  whenever  they  are  con- 
ceived by  any  intelligence  anywhere  the  same  relations  shall 
be  instituted.  The  relations,  while  subjective,  may  be  also 
universal.  It  follows  only  from  this  subjectivity  that  it  is 
absurd  to  speak  of  relations  as  objectively  existing.  And 
what  is  thus  true  of  relations  in  general  must  be  true  also 
of  space-relations.  In  so  far  as  space  is  a  system  of  relations, 
in  so  far  it  has  only  a  subjective  existence.  If  space-rela- 
tions are  to  have  objective  existence  they  must  be  more  than 
relations ;  they  must  be  a  series  of  interactions  among  things. 
But  in  that  case  we  should  deny  the  indifference  of  things  to 
space,  and  fall  back  again  into  the  view  which  makes  space 
active.  We  must  then  dismiss  the  doctrine  that  space  is  a 
series  of  objective  relations  among  things.  Space  is  neither 
a  real  thing  nor  an  ontological  predicate. 

The  two  first  views  of  the  nature  of  space  proving  unten- 
able, we  seem  shut  up  to  the  third,  which  makes  space  a 
form  of  intuition,  and  not  a  mode  of  existence.  According 
to  this  view,  things  are  not  in  space  and  space-relations,  but 
appear  to  be.  In  themselves  they  are  essentially  non-spatial ; 
but  by  their  interactions  with  one  another,  and  with  the 
mind,  they  give  rise  to  the  appearance  of  a  world  of  extend- 
ed things  in  a  common  space.  Space-predicates,  then,  be- 
long to  phenomena  only,  and  not  to  things  in  themselves. 
But  while  shut  up  to  this  view  by  the  failure  of  the  others, 
we  seem  shut  out  from  it  by  its  own  overwhelming  absurdity. 
Certainly,  before  the  doctrine  can  be  made  to  seem  anything 
but  the  most  grievous  outrage  on  common-sense,  the  para- 
dox must  be  explained  away,  or  at  least  relieved ;  and  this 
we  now  hope  to  do.  The  chief  difficulties  are  due  to  a 
swarm  of  misconceptions,  which  have  clustered  around  the 
doctrine ;  and  a  large  part  of  the  argument  for  its  validity 
must  consist  in  removing  these  misunderstandings. 

In  the  first  place,  the  doctrine  is  commonly  made  to  mean 
13 


194:  METAPHYSICS. 

that  our  space-intuition  is  something  arbitrary,  and  without 
any  determining  factor  in  the  world  of  reality.  The  mind 
is  conceived  as  standing  with  its  space-forms  waiting  to  im- 
pose them  upon  reality  without  any  regard  whatever  for 
the  peculiar  nature  or  circumstances  of  reality.  These  forms 
are  purely  external  impositions,  and  might  as  well  hate  been 
anything  else  whatever.  They  are  the  mental  spectacles 
through  which  the  mind  looks,  and,  for  all  we  know,  other 
beings  may  have  altogether  different  spectacles.  This  doc- 
trine of  the  spectacles  implies  absolute  nescience  and  uni- 
versal relativity  of  knowledge ;  for,  of  course,  we  cannot 
tell  how  things  would  look  if  the  spectacles  were  off;  nor 
how  things  may  look  to  other  beings  who  may  have  differ- 
ent spectacles.  But  the  obnoxious  feature  of  the  doctrine 
is,  that  the  spectacles  are  viewed  as  having  only  an  arbitrary 
relation  to  reality,  and  hence  one  which  might  as  well  be 
changed  as  not.  Even  Kant,  the  first  pronounced  teacher 
of  the  ideality  of  space,  is  chargeable  with  this  misunder- 
standing and  extravagance.  Doubtless  many  passages  could 
be  adduced  which  would  show  that  he  viewed  the  order  and 
sequence  of  phenomena  as  objectively  determined ;  but  in 
so  doing  he  was  inconsistent  with  his  own  doctrine  of  causa- 
tion, which  denies  determination  to  things  in  themselves, 
and,  besides,  the  conception  of  the  mind,  as  arbitrarily  related 
to  things,  incessantly  reappears.  The  result  is,  that  his 
theory  of  perception  breaks  down  in  the  attempt  to  bring 
the  mental  form  into  use.  The  mental  form  is  compatible 
with  the  most  varied  applications.  The  space-form  in  itself 
does  not  determine  whether  a  given  object  shall  appear  as  a 
cube,  or  as  some  other  figure ;  and  there  is  nothing  in  Kant's 
exposition  which  supplies  a  principle  of  discrimination,  or 
makes  the  choice  between  the  various  forms  other  than  ar- 
bitrary. The  disciples  of  Kant  were  more  oblivious  of  this 
difficulty  than  Kant  himself,  and  in  general  they  left  the 
application  of  the  mental  form  to  pure  chance.  It  was  nec- 
essary, therefore,  that  the  system  should  pass  into  the  sub- 


SPACE.  195 

jective  idealism  of  Fichte.  Only  recently  M.  Lachelier,  in 
a  treatise  on  the  foundations  of  induction,  has  returned  to 
this  extravagance,  and  declared  that  the  warrant  for  trust  in 
induction  is,  that  the  mind  gives  law  to  its  objects.  This 
may  do  for  the  absolute,  but  the  absolute  needs  no  induction. 
The  human  mind,  which  alone  needs  to  make  an  induction, 
has  no  such  independence  in  the  use  either  of  the  forms 
of  the  sensibility  or  of  the  understanding.  The  positions 
and  relations  of  things  in  our  subjective  space  are  indepen- 
dent of  our  volition,  and  their  spatial  changes  take  place 
without  any  consent  of  ours.  The  source  of  their  movement, 
and  the  ground  of  their  relative  arrangement,  are  not  in  us. 
The  subjective  image  of  things  in  space  at  any  point  and 
time  is  a  fixed  one.  We  cannot  exchange  the  right  for  the 
left,  the  up  for  the  down,  the  far  for  the  near,  etc.  Least  of 
all  can  we  eliminate  the  idea  of  distance  from  our  subjec- 
tive space,  and  think  of  things  as  equidistant  from  one  an- 
other. The  same  thing  has  happened  with  the  subjectivity 
of  space  as  with  the  subjectivity  of  sense-qualities.  It  is 
very  common  when  the  beginner  in  psychology  has  learned, 
rather  than  mastered,  the  latter  doctrine,  to  hear  him  affirm- 
ing that  they  are  nothing  but  mental  affections,  in  complete 
forgetfulriess  of  the  fact  that,  while  subjective  effects,  they 
still  have  an  objective  cause,  which,  though  not  like  them, 
nevertheless  completely  determines  them.  We  can,  then, 
affirm  the  subjectivity  of  space  only  in  this  form.  The  re- 
lation of  things  to  us  is  such  that  when  they  strike  upon  our 
senses  they  produce  certain  sensations  of  light,  heat,  and 
sound.  These  sensations,  however,  are  not  copies  of  any- 
thing objective,  but  are  the  subjective  symbol,  or  translation, 
of  certain  phases  of  the  object.  Now  in  the  same  way  things 
and  their  unpicturable  interactions  are  such  that  they  pro- 
duce in  perceptive  beings  an  intuition  of  space,  which  intui- 
tion, again,  is  not  a  copy  of  anything  objective,  but  only  the 
subjective  symbol  or  translation  into  the  forms  of  sense-in- 
tuition of  unpicturable  realities  beyond  them.  The  intui- 


196  METAPHYSICS. 

tion,  however,  is  not  independent  of  the  realities,  but  for 
each  change  in  the  latter  there  is  a  definite  change  in  the 
former.  Just  as  a  rise  or  fall  in  the  rate  of  vibration  is  at- 
tended by  a  rise  or  fall  of  the  tone  heard,  or  the  color  seen, 
so  any  change  in  the  metaphysical  interactions  of  things  is 
attended  by  a  corresponding  change  in  the  apparent  space- 
relations.  XDr  as  the  dark  ether  tides  flash  into  a  sphere  of 
light  when  they  strike  upon  an  eye,  so  the  ineifable  tides 
and  activities  of  the  infinite,  when  they  strike  the  soul,  ap- 
pear as  a  world  of  things  in  space  and  space-relations.  The 
subjective  intuition  has  its  objective  ground ;  but  that  ground, 
though  unlike  its  mental  translation,  yet  stands  in  certain 
definite  relations  to  it,  so  that  a  given  state  of  the  object  al- 
lows only  one  space-translation,  just  as  a  given  rate  of  vibra- 
tion can  be  heard  only  as  one  tone.  This  fixed  connection 
between  reality  and  its  spatial  phenomena  allows  us  to  deal 
with  the  latter  as  if  they  were  real  objects,  and  to  predict 
their  course  with  as  much  certainty  as  if  they  were  things 
in  themselves.  It  produces  the  same  reign  of  law  among 
phenomena  and  the  same  possibility  of  prevision  which 
would  exist  if  phenomena  were  things.  Mechanics  and 
astronomy  run  no  risk  of  being  falsified  or  displaced  by  the 
subjectivity  of  space. 

Are,  then,  all  things  together  in  space  ?  No ;  they  are 
neither  together  nor  separate,  for  both  of  these  predicates 
imply  space,  and  we  must  not  tacitly  assume  what  we  have 
openly  denied.  But  just  as  the  universe,  apart  from  sense, 
is  neither  light  nor  dark,  sounding  nor  silent,  but  such  that 
it  appears  as  light  or  dark,  so  things  apart  from  intuition 
are  neither  apart  nor  together,  neither  in  a  point  nor  out  of 
it ;  but  such  that  they  appear  apart  or  together.  The  scho- 
lastic's conclusion  from  the  non-spatiality  of  spirit  that  any 
number  of  angels  could  dance  on  a  needle's  point,  rests  on 
a  tacit  retention  of  the  space-idea ;  for  it  denies  space  spa- 
tially. 

A  second  misconception  is,  that  our  view  makes  space  a 


SPACE.  197 

delusion,  and  thus  destroys  all  confidence  in  the  mind.  This 
error  has  several  roots.  The  first  is  the  failure  to  discrimi- 
nate between  the  relative  authority  of  different  forms  of 
mental  action.  The  second  is  a  confounding  of  reality  in 
mind  with  delusion.  This  mistake  is  also  aided  by  the  fact 
that  appearance  is  often  used  to  signify  delusion.  But  in 
discussing  being  we  pointed  out  that  reality  may  have  many 
meanings.  We  speak  of  events,  relations,  and  thoughts  as 
real ;  and  upon  occasion  the  enthusiastic  moralist  will  de- 
clare that  goodness  is  the  only  thing  that  is  real.  And  cer- 
tainly no  one  would  regard  love  and  goodness  as  unreal  be- 
cause they  exist  only  in  the  free  spirit.  Of  course  they  are 
not  things,  but  they  do  not  thereby  become  delusions.  The 
objection  we  are  considering  rests  upon  an  uncritical  preju- 
dice concerning  the  relation  of  the  mind  to  the  universe.  It 
is  viewed  as  non-essential,  as  adding  nothing,  and  as  at  best 
only  copying  a  reality  which  would  exist  just  the  same  if 
all  mind  were  away.  This  we  say  is  an  uncritical  assump- 
tion, for  it  is  one  of  the  great  questions  of  philosophy  wheth- 
er mind  can  be  viewed  as  thus  superfluous,  or  whether,  on 
the  contrary,  the  universe  can  have  its  full  existence  any- 
where but  in  mind.  To  make  this  last  question  seem  less 
absurd,  we  need  only  remember  our  conclusion  that  the  uni- 
verse, as  a  system  of  relations,  cannot  have  an  existence 
apart  from  mind.  And  the  great  empire  of  love  and  justice 
and  righteousness,  though  real,  can  exist  only  in  mind.  The 
kingdom  of  thought,  too,  is,  after  all,  a  kingdom  only  in 
thought ;  but  it  is  not  on  that  account  a  delusion.  As  the 
subjective  side,  or  manifestation  of  being,  it  may  be  neces- 
sary and  universal.  As  we  pointed  out  in  the  introduction, 
a  subjective  reality  may  be  real  for  all,  and  it  may  be  the 
very  summit  and  crown  of  being.  Now  when  we  come  to 
criticise  the  confused  synthesis  of  experiences  which  makes 
up  the  world-view  of  common-sense,  the  question  is  not 
whether  this  mass  of  raw  material  be  real,  but  what  kind  of 
reality  can  be  attributed  to  it.  And  this  inquiry  is  raised 


198  METAPHYSICS. 

not  in  a  sceptical  way,  but  with  full  faith  in  reason  to  disen- 
gage the  several  factors  of  the  tangled  mass,  and  assign  to 
each  its  true  position  in  an  intellectual  system.  Pursuing 
the  inquiry  in  this  spirit,  we  soon  find  ourselves  compelled 
to  disturb  the  uncritical  rest  of  common-sense.  The  entire 
world  of  sense-qualities  is  discovered  to  have  no  objective 
existence,  but  to  be  only  affections  of  the  subject.  They  do 
not  thereby  become  unreal  and  delusive,  for  all  that  was 
ever  true  of  them  remains  true  of  them  still.  Their  nature 
and  relations  are  totally  undisturbed.  We  have  learned  not 
that  they  are  unreal,  but  that  they  have  their  reality  only  in 
mind.  But  a  childish  haste  at  this  point  often  hurries  ns 
into  absurdity.  After  learning  that  their  objective  ground 
is  a  certain  order  of  vibrations,  we  hasten  to  declare  that 
they  themselves  are  nothing  but  vibrations.  As  if  the  dis- 
covery of  this  objective  ground  made  them  other  than  they 
are.  And  we  fancy  that  we  have  banished  them  from  the 
system.  But  color  and  harmony,  like  justice  and  righteous- 
ness, still  remain  facts  of  the  universe,  though  they  have 
their  existence  only  in  mind.  This  illustration  may  serve 
to  show  the  difference  between  reality  in  mind  and  mere 
delusion.  And  when  we  call  space  a  mode  of  appearance 
we  do  not  mean  that  it  is  a  delusion,  but  the  form  in  which 
being  appears  in  intuition.  Those  appearances  are  delu- 
sions which  intuition  itself  contradicts. 

It  is  now  generally  admitted  that  the  sensibility  does  not 
give  us  the  objective  fact,  as  we  must  think  of  it.  That 
which  exists  for  thoughtless  common-sense  as  a  colored  ob- 
ject, exists  for  reflection  as  a  collection  of  vibrating  elements. 
That  which  exists  for  common-sense  as  a  sphere  of  light,  is 
for  reflection  a  vast  mathematical  function  of  vibrations. 
But  next  the  question  arises  whether  sense-perception  itself 
gives  us  the  fact  as  it  exists  for  reason ;  and  we  find  grounds 
for  thinking  not.  We  view  space  as  a  mental  principle, 
rather  than  an  objective  fact.  But  what  we  said  of  sense- 
qualities  must  be  repeated  here.  Space  does  not  become  on 


SPACE.  199 

this  account  an  unreal  delusion.  All  that  was  true  of  space 
and  space-relations,  and  of  objects  in  space-relations,  remains 
true  still.  We  have  merely  discovered  that  there  is  some- 
thing deeper  than  space,  and  that  what  appears  does  not 
reveal  the  fact  as  reason  is  forced  to  conceive  it.  And  so 
we  come  finally  to  the  conclusion  that  reality  cannot  be 
pictured,  but  must  be  thought ;  it  must  be  grasped  in  con- 
cepts and  not  in  images.  For  the  pure  reason,  therefore, 
reality  exists  without  space-predicates.  In  our  intuition,  it 
takes  on  the  forms  of  space;  in  our  sensibility,  it  takes  on 
the  form  of  sense-qualities.  But  none  of  these  realms  con- 
tradict one  another;  they  rise  rather  in  linear  order,  one 
above  the  other.  Sensibility  gives  things  as  they  affect  usT 
Sensibility  and  perception  combined  give  things  as  they  ap- 
pear. Only  the  pure  reason  gives  things  as  they  are.  But 
this  process  is  not  sceptical.  The  conclusions  reached  are 
not  forced  upon  us  against  reason,  but  by  reason  itself. 
Neither  do  we  deny  the  truth  of  appearances  as  appearing. 
They  furnish  our  starting-point,  but  not  our  stopping-point; 
for  we  find  in  the  appearances  themselves  the  necessity  of 
going  behind  them  to  something  which,  though  their  ground, 
is  still  without  the  predicates  of  the  appearances.  But  we 
should  not  pass  behind  the  appearance  if  there  were  nothing 
in  it  to  warrant  it.  In  that  case  we  should  stop  with  the 
spontaneous  view  of  the  unphilosophical  mind,  and  regard 
the  world  as  it  appears  as  the  deepest  and  final  fact.  Who- 
ever will  bear  in  mind  that  the  reality  as  it  exists  for  reason 
does  not  contradict  the  reality  as  it  appears,  will  see  that 
there  is  nothing  sceptical  in  our  conclusion,  provided  it  be 
solidly  deduced.  On  the  contrary,  the  refusal  to  go  where 
thought  points  is  the  true  and  only  scepticism.  The  charge 
of  scepticism  which  is  incessantly  made  against  the  doctrine 
rests  upon  misunderstanding.  It  is  assumed  that  if  the  doc- 
trine were  true,  we  might  intuite  things  in  altogether  differ- 
ent space-relations,  and  thus  bring  our  intuition  into  contra- 
diction with  itself.  But  the  intuition  will  never  penetrate 


200  METAPHYSICS. 

behind  itself.  Thought  alone  can  transcend  the  appearance 
and  reach  that  which  is  behind  it. 

This  demand  to  think  of  things  without  relation  to  space 
is,  after  all,  not  so  foreign  to  our  thought.  We  have  only  to 
reflect  upon  our  own  mental  existence  to  see  that  in  any 
case  space  applies  only  to  objects  as  intuited.  But  in  all  our 
reasoning  it  never  occurs  to  us  to  give  our  thoughts  space- 
predicates.  "We  think  of  our  thoughts  as  neither  in  the  soul 
nor  out  of  it,  but  only  as  dependent  upon  it.  We  never 
think  of  them  as  to  the  right  or  left,  or  as  above  and  below 
one  another,  but  only  as  coexistent  and  sequent  in  logical 
relations.  In  the  same  way,  we  think  of  the  fundamental 
being  which  we  have  been  forced  to  posit  as  without  form 
of  any  kind ;  and  we  think  of  things  existing  in  it  just  as 
non-spatially  as  our  thoughts  and  feelings  exist  in  the  mind. 
And  as  the  soul  and  its  thoughts  cannot  be  pictured  in  their 
proper  existence,  so  the  infinite  and  its  products  cannot  be 
pictured  in  their  proper  existence.  In  thinking  of  them,  we 
must  use  concepts  only,  and  not  images.  We  point  out  again 
that  if  we  do  view  space  as  real,  the  infinite  itself  must  be 
viewed  as  in  space  with  boundless  bulk ;  but  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  cannot  allow  this  conception,  then  we  must  also 
allow  that  the  manifestations  of  the  infinite,  or  things,  are 
also  not  in  space,  but  appear  under  the  form  of  space.  On 
this  point,  the  popular  thought  has  not  attained  to  any  con- 
sistent conception.  Once  in  a  while  a  speculator  can  be 
found  who  maintains  that  all  things,  finite  and  infinite,  ma- 
terial and  spiritual,  are  in  space ;  but,  in  general,  the  tendency 
has  been  to  limit  space  to  material  things  only.  But  there 
has  been  no  attempt  to  reconcile  the  non-spatiality  of  spir- 
itual existence  with  the  reality  of  space,  as  opposed  to  its 
phenomenality. 

Another  misconception  is  closely  related  to  this.  When 
we  say  that  space,  as  appearing,  is  only  a  form  of  intuition, 
we  are  at  once  tempted  to  say  that  it  is  only  a  form  of  hu- 
man intuition ;  and  thus  there  arises  the  notion  that  possibly 


SPACE.  201 

there  may  be  beings  which  intuite  things  apart  from  space, 
or  which  may  reverse  our  intuitions.  But  this  is  no  neces- 
sary consequence  of  the  doctrine.  The  subjectivity  of  space 
decides  nothing  as  to  its  universality,  any  more  than  the 
subjectivity  of  mental  and  moral  principles  decide  as  to 
their  universality.  There  may  be  universals  in  mind  as  well 
as  in  the  non-mental  realm.  Whether  we  have  reached  a 
universal  in  the  case  of  space  can  be  decided  only  by  reflect- 
ing upon  its  character,  and  the  cogency  with  which  the  notion 
forces  itself  upon  intelligence.  Space  may  well  be  a  form 
of  all  intuition,  both  human  and  divine.  At  this  point  a 
curious  inconsistency  often  masters  us.  The  current  notion 
of  the  infinite  being,  even  when  it  is  allowed  to  be  intelli- 
gent, is  that  it  is  pure  reason  only  without  intuition  or  sensi- 
bility. This  notion  depends  on  the  ancient  doctrine  that 
intuition  and  sensibility  are  degraded  and  imperfect  forms 
of  reason,  and  as  such  can  find  no  place  in  the  perfect.  But 
we  have  seen  that  they  are  not  properly  competing,  but  sim- 
ply different  forms  of  mental  action,  each  of  which  supple- 
ments without  contradicting  the  rest.  But  if  this  be  so, 
then  we  cannot  deny  these  forms  to  the  infinite  without 
limiting  it,  so  that  what  is  possible  with  man  should  be  im- 
possible with  God.  "We  hold,  therefore,  that  God  is  not  onTy ' 
pure  thought,  but  he  is  also  absolute  intuition  and  absolute 
sensibility.  He  not  only  grasps  reality  in  his  absolute 
thought,  but  he  sees  it  in  his  absolute  intuition,  and  enjoys 
it  in  his  absolute  sensibility.  We  cannot  without  contradic- 
tion allow  that  there  is  anything  in  the  world  of  the  think- 
able which  is  excluded  from  the  source  of  all  thought  and 
knowledge.  Our  notion  of  God  as  pure  thought  only  would 
exclude  the  harmonies  of  light,  sound,  and  form  from  his 
knowledge ;  and  limit  him  to  a  knowledge  of  the  skeleton  of 
the  universe  instead  of  its  living  beauty.  The  notion  of  God 
as  sensitive  appears  as  anthropomorphic  only  because  of  men- 
tal confusion.  To  the  thoughtless,  sensibility  implies  a  body ; 
but  in  truth  it  is  as  purely  spiritual  an  affection  as  the  most 


202  METAPHYSICS. 

abstract  thought.  All  the  body  does  for  us  is  to  call  forth 
sensibility ;  but  it  in  no  sense  produces  it,  and  it  is  entirely 
conceivable  that  it  should  exist  in  a  purely  spiritual  being 
apart  from  any  body.  There  can  hardly  be  a  more  irrational 
conception  of  the  divine  knowledge  than  that  which  assumes 
that  it  grasps  reality  only  as  it  exists  for  pure  thought,  and 
misses  altogether  the  look  and  the  life  of  things.  On  the 
contrary,  just  as  we  regard  our  reason  as  the  faint  type  of 
the  infinite  reason,  so  we  regard  our  intuitions  of  things  as 
a  faint  type  of  the  absolute  intuition  ;  and  so  also  we  regard 

»  the  harmonies  of  sensibility  and  feeling  as  the  faintest 
echoes  of  the  absolute  sensibility,  stray  notes  wandering  of? 
from  the  source  of  feeling  and  life  and  beauty.  In  fact,  this 
universality  and  fixedness  of  the  space-intuition  brings  our 
view  into  close  harmony  with  the  common  view.  Space, 
though  existing  only  in  mind,  yet  does  not  depend  on  the 

\  finite  mind  alone,  but  has  its  essential  source  and  seat  in  the 
,mind  and  thought  of  the  infinite. 

Some  final  misconceptions  may  soon  be  warded  off.  It  is 
not  to  be  expected  that  daily  language  should  be  modified 
to  suit  this  view;  indeed,  if  it  were,  it  would  almost  certainly 
be  false ;  for  daily  life  deals  only  with  things  in  intuition, 
and  space  is  a  form  of  intuition.  It  is  only  when  we  pass 
into  the  realm  of  pure  thought  that  we  must  drop  our  space- 
conceptions.  It  would  be  absurd  pedantry  to  refuse  to  say 
that  the  sun  rises  and  sets,  and  yet  when  it  comes  to  an  ulti- 
mate explanation,  we  must  forsake  the  phenomenal  stand- 
point and  put  our  eye  at  the  centre.  It  would  be  excessively 
tedious  and  stupid  if,  instead  of  calling  a  thing  red  or  green, 
we  should  say  that  it  emits  vibrations  of  a  certain  length. 
When  dealing  -with  phenomena,  phenomenal  language  only 
is  in  place.  Yet  even  here  it  is  at  times  necessary  to  drop 
our  phenomenal  expressions  and  deal  with  the  fact  in 
thought-terms.  So  also  in  metaphysics  we  use  and  must 
use  the  language  of  space  in  dealing  with  phenomena ;  but 
when  we  seek  for  an  ultimate  explanation,  we  are  forced  to 


SPACE.  203 

abandon  this  language  as  having  only  a  phenomenal  appli- 
cation. 

Yet,  after  all,  it  will  be  urged,  this  view  is  totally  foreign 
to  the  appearance.  Of  course  it  is,  and  no  one  denies  it. 
Space  as  the  form  of  appearance  can  never  be  emptied  out 
of  appearance.  It  is  a  complete  misconception  of  our  aim 
to  suppose  that  we  are  trying  to  irituite  things  out  of  space. 
It  will  be  further  urged  that  this  is  not  the  impression  which 
reality  has  made  on  the  common  mind.  But  what  of  that  ? 
The  common  mind  is  busied  only  with  things  as  they  ap- 
pear, and  space  is  real  in  appearance.  Our  theory  excludes 
it  only  from  things  as  thought,  and  not  from  things  as  they 
appear.  Moreover,  the  doctrine  is  scarcely  more  scandalous 
to  so-called  common-sense  than  is  the  received  doctrine  of 
sense-qualities.  It  is  amazingly  clear  that  the  sun  shines, 
whether  seen  or  not ;  and  that  sound  rings  just  the  same, 
whether  heard  or  not.  But  physiology  has  discredited  these 
notions  utterly.  Indeed  it  is  high  time  to  abandon  the  at- 
tempts to  settle  the  deepest  questions  of  philosophy  by  ap- 
peals to  uncritical  common-sense.  Our  senses  are  given  to 
us  for  practical  purposes.  They  reveal  to  us  how  things 
affect  us  and  how  they  appear.  As  long  as  they  do  this  well 
and  truly,  they  furnish  the  conditions  of  a  mental  and  emo- 
tional existence ;  and  there  is  no  apriori  ground  for  asking 
for  more.  Nor  is  the  pretence  to  be  allowed,  that  the  divine 
veracity  is  implicated  in  the  truth  of  the  senses.  If  it  were 
so,  that  veracity  would  be  hopelessly  impugned,  for  the 
whole  course  of  scientific  research  has  shown  that  things  are 
not  what  they  seem.  The  atomic  theory  of  matter,  and  the 
current  theory  of  light  and  sound,  are  in  fatal  contradiction 
of  appearances.  But  this  claim  is  a  worn-out  fetch  of  cer- 
tain disciples  of  common-sense,  whereby  they  hope  to  put  an 
end  to  all  discussion,  and  to  supplement  their  own  lack  of 
argument.  It  rests  entirely  upon  the  unproved  assumption 
that  the  senses  were  meant  to  give  us  the  metaphysical  truth 
of  things  instead  of  appearances.  And  upon  reflection  it 


204:  METAPHYSICS. 

becomes  plain  that  the  senses  give  us  something  better. 
We  owe  to  them  all  the  wonder  and  beauty  and  harmony 
of  the  world,  so  that  they  appear  as  the  necessary  adjuncts 
of  reason  in  order  to  clothe  the  naked  skeleton  of  being 
with  life  and  meaning,  and  in  order  to  interpret  to  reason 
itself  what  is  contained  in  those  mysterious  foundations 
which  it  lays  down.  It  would  be  a  beggarly  exchange  if 
we  were  forced  to  give  up  the  delights  of  sound  and  color 
for  the  contemplation  of  a  vast  sea  of  mechanical  vibrations. 
There  would  be  just  ground  of  complaint  only  if  reason  it- 
self were  shattered,  and  if  the  moral  instincts  and  aspirations 
of  the  soul  were  misleading  will-o'-the-wisps. 

Thus  we  have  expounded,  at  great  length,  the  doctrine  in 
question,  in  the  hope  of  rescuing  it  from  the  misunderstand- 
ings which  make  it  so  obnoxious  to  our  spontaneous  thought. 
A  single  pedagogical  remark  remains  to  be  made.  Any  at- 
tempt to  construe  the  doctrine  to  the  imagination  must  nec- 
essarily fail ;  for  space  is  the  form  of  the  imagination.  All 
such  attempts  are  excluded  by  the  terms  of  the  doctrine, 
and  hence  involve  a  misunderstanding  of  it.  We  cannot, 
therefore,  pierce  behind  space  by  the  imagination  which  is 
limited  to  the  forms  of  space,  and  tell  how  the  non-spatial 
realities  look  in  their  non-spatial  existence.  They  do  not 
took  at  all.  Pure  thought  only  can  enter  that  unimaginable 
realm,  and  with  its  non- spatial  categories  determine  how 
we  shall  think  of  those  things  which,  by  their  interactions, 
found  all  relations  and  all  appearances. 

We  have  now  to  decide  between  the  three  views  of  space. 
In  any  case,  space  must  be  a  principle  of  intuition.  One 
fact,  which  makes  the  objectivity  of  space  so  unquestionable 
to  unreflective  thought,  is,  that  we  have  apparently  an  im- 
mediate perception  of  its  existence,  so  that  our  perception 
of  space  is  as  direct  and  immediate  as  our  perception  of 
things.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  made  an  objection  to  the 
subjective  theory  that  it  implies  a  deal  of  mental  mechanism 
and  mental  activity,  of  which  we  are  totally  unconscious. 


SPACE.  205 

Both  positions  are  worthless  as  arguments.  The  apparently 
immediate  perception  of  space  is,  in  any  case,  the  result  of 
non-spatial  activities.  The  existence  of  space  would  not  ac- 
count for  its  perception.  We  must  in  some  way  be  affect- 
ed by  it.  But  space  itself  does  not  act  upon  the  mind ;  only 
things  do  that.  Hence  our  knowledge  of  space  is  a  mental 
interpretation  of  the  action  of  things  upon  the  mind.  In 
this  action,  spatial  properties  are  displaced  by  varying  in- 
tensities of  activity,  and  these  variations  are  translated  by 
the  mind  into  space-terms.  In  Part  III.  we  shall  discuss 
this  proposition  at  length ;  we  refer  to  it  here  because  of 
its  position  in  our  argument.  Hence  there  is  not  the  slight- 
est need  of  admitting  an  objective  space  to  account  for  our 
space -experience.  Nor  do  we,  by  affirming  an  objective 
space,  escape  the  necessity  of  admitting  the  mediating  men- 
tal activity  which  is  objected  to.  If  space  be  a  principle 
of  intuition,  its  necessity  in  intuition  is  fully  explained,  and 
the  impossibility  of  intuiting  things  apart  from  it  becomes 
apparent.  There  is  no  need  to  admit  any  objective  space 
to  explain  all  the  facts.  But,  in  strict  method,  this  fact 
ought  to  settle  the  question.  The  idealist  rightly  urges 
that  objective  existences  must  not  be  multiplied  beyond 
necessity.  The  objective  existence  of  space  is  as  much  a 
theory  as  is  its  subjective  character ;  and  when  it  is  seen  to 
be  a  theory,  its  validity  must  be  established.  That  it  is  gen- 
erally held  is  a  fact,  not  a  proof ;  just  as  the  general  belief 
in  the  motion  of  the  sun  around  the  earth  was  a  fact  only, 
and  not  a  proof.  "We  need  not,  however,  rest  our  conclusion 
solely  on  the  fact  that  the  realist  cannot  prove  the  objectiv- 
ity of  space.  We  have  further  seen  that  the  realistic  view 
is  inconsistent,  and  upon  analysis  even  unintelligible.  It 
hovers  between  making  space  something  and  nothing,  and 
both  views  are  absurd.  It  also  conflicts  with  the  unity  of 
being,  and  forces  us  to  regard  the  infinite  as  composed  of 
parts.  Finally,  it  implies  a  hopeless  dualism  of  first  princi- 
ples, in  that  it  implies  the  coexistence  of  two  necessary  and 


206  METAPHYSICS. 

mutually  independent  principles.  But  this  view  is  strictly 
impossible,  and  any  doctrine  which  leads  to  it  must  be  re- 
jected. The  attempt  to  regard  space  as  a  system  of  rela- 
tions between  things  we  found  to  be  an  impossible  compro- 
mise between  the  subjective  and  the  objective  view.  It  is 
impossible  to  interpret  the  objective  relations  without  refer- 
ence to  our  general  intuition  of  one  space,  and  finally  it.  is 
impossible  to  view  relations  as  objectively  existing  in  any 
case.  The  objective  existence  of  space,  then,  is  not  only 
not  proven,  but  it  is  in  itself  unclear,  inconsistent,  and  im- 
possible. We  reject  it,  therefore,  for  the  view  that  space  is 
ultimately  a  principle  of  intuition,  and,  secondarily,  a  mode 
of  appearance.  But  though  subjective,  it  is  not  arbitrary  or 
individual.  A  given  state  of  being  may  allow  of  only  one 
space-translation,  and  this  translation  may  be  universal  and 
changeless  in  all  intuition,  whether  divine  or  human.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  the  universe  can  have  its  spatial  properties 
and  relations  only  in  the  mind,  which  not  only  belongs  to 
the  system,  but  is  both  its  foundation  and  its  crown. 

These  arguments  for  the  subjectivity  of  space  differ,  it  will 
be  seen,  very  largely  from  those  offered  by  Kant.  The  de- 
cisive reason,  with  him,  is  found  in  the  antinomies  of  rea- 
son with  regard  to  space.  These  antinomies  concern  the 
limitation  or  non-limitation  of  the  universe,  and  the  infinite 
divisibility  of  matter  in  space.  Both  the  affirmative  and 
the  negative,  Kant  said,  can  be  proved  with  equal  cogency, 
and  hence  we  must  limit  space  to  a  purely  subjective  signif- 
icance. But  there  is  no  logic  to  this  conclusion,  unless  it  be 
shown  that  the  contradiction  vanishes  when  space  is  as- 
sumed to  be  phenomenal,  and  this  showing  is  not  forthcom- 
ing. Indeed,  the  special  difficulty  in  the  spatial  antinomies 
is  in  no  way  relieved  by  the  assumption  that  space  is  only 
phenomenal.  If  the  thesis  and  antithesis  were  alike  co- 
gently proved,  which,  fortunately,  is  not  the  case,  the  con- 
clusion would  be  that  the  space-principle  is  in  contradiction 
with  itself,  and  the  outcome  would  be,  not  phenomenalism, 


SPACE.  207 

but  scepticism.  And,  in  general,  when  a  contradiction  ex- 
ists between  the  results  of  equally  valid  mental  processes, 
there  can  be  no  relief  in  phenomenalism.  One  or  the  other 
of  the  conclusions  must  be  fallaciously  reached,  or  else  scep- 
ticism of  reason  results.  On  this  account,  Kant's  deduction 
of  the  subjectivity  of  space  must  be  declared  insufficient  in 
logic  and  doubtful  in  principle.  "We  have  aimed,  therefore, 
to  give  the  argument  another  form,  and  have  founded  the 
conclusion,  not  on  any  inherent  contradictions  of  the  space- 
principle,  but  on  the  impossibility  of  uniting  the  objective 
reality  of  space  with  the  necessary  unity  of  being,  and  the 
impossibility  of  admitting  more  than  one  basal  and  necessary 
being.  These  facts,  together  with  the  necessary  subjectiv- 
ity of  relations  and  the  impossibility  of  bringing  space,  as- 
sumed or  real,  into  any  articulate  relation  to  the  things 
which  are  said  to  be  in  it,  constitute  for  us  the  ground  for 
denying  the  objective  reality  of  space. 

But  are  we  ourselves  any  better  off  than  before  ?  Have 
we  not  introduced  doubt  and  distrust  into  the  mind  to  such 
an  extent  that  scepticism  is  the  only  outcome?  We  think 
not.  We  have,  indeed,  thrown  doubt  upon  uncritical  think- 
ing, but  always  in  the  name  of  reason  itself.  We  have 
found  various  inconsistencies  in  our  spontaneous  concep- 
tions, and  these  we  have  sought  to  eliminate  by  proposing 
the  subjective  conception  of  space.  The  practical  value  of 
this  view  is,  indeed,  small  enough.  It  opens  no  new  realm, 
and  leads  to  no  new  insight.  Its  only  value  is  in  removing 
the  contradictions  under  which  the  common  view  labors. 
It  enables  us  to  maintain  the  unity  of  being  and  the  unity 
of  the  basal  reality.  It  enables  us  to  escape  all  the  perplex- 
ities concerning  the  relations  of  things  to  space,  which  are 
insoluble  so  long  as  space  is  viewed  as  real.  Besides,  as  a 
principle  of  intuition,  it  has  all  the  authority  and  univer- 
sality in  intuition  which  space,  as  a  reality,  could  possibly 
have. 

The  relation  of  the  infinite  to  space  calls  for  brief  men- 


208  METAPHYSICS. 

tion.  "We  have  affirmed  that  space,  as  the  principle  of  in- 
tuition, may  exist  for  the  infinite  as  well  as  for  the  finite, 
and  this  may  easily  be  mistaken  for  a  limitation  of  the  infi- 
nite. But  this  would  be  to  confound  space  as  principle 
with  space  as  limitation.  Space  as  limitation  can  exist  only 
for  the  finite ;  and  this  limitation  consists  solely  in  the  fact 
that  our  immediate  action  upon  reality  is  limited.  Far  and 
near  are  terms  which  depend  entirely  upon  the  amount  of 
mediation  or  of  time  necessary  to  affect  any  given  reality. 
Wherever  we  act  immediately,  there  we  are ;  so  that,  in- 
stead of  saying  we  can  act  only  where  we  are,  we  ought 
rather  to  say  we  are  wherever  we  act.  But,  in  order  to  act 
upon  most  things,  we  must  employ  media.  Hence  we  are 
limited.  But  the  infinite  needs  no  media.  It  acts  directly 
upon  all  reality,  and  hence  is  everywhere.  For,  by  omni- 
presence, we  can  mean  nothing  more  than  this  immediate 
action  upon  all  reality.  The  conception  of  omnipresence 
as  a  boundless  space-filling  bulk  is  a  contradiction,  for  that 
which  is  in  space  and  fills  space  cannot  be  omnipresent  in 
space,  but  different  parts  must  be  in  different  places.  Each 
part,  then,  would  be  in  its  own  place,  and  nowhere  else. 
Thus  the  unity  and  omnipresence  of  the  infinite  would  dis- 
appear. 

Our  general  view  of  space  cannot  fail  to  suggest  the  much- 
debated  question  concerning  the  dimensions  of  space.  Of 
late  years  the  claim  has  often  been  made  by  mathematicians 
that  space  may  not  be  restricted  to  three  dimensions,  and 
elaborate  discussions  have  been  made  of  the  properties  of 
non-Euclidian  space.  The  most  curious  conclusions  have 
been  drawn  as  to  what  would  be  true  in  such  spaces,  and 
the  impression  has  become  very  general  that  the  conception 
of  space  as  having  only  three  dimensions  is  mistaken.  We 
have  now  to  inquire  whether  the  principle  of  space  is  such 
as  to  restrict  it  necessarily  to  three  dimensions.  Our  own 
theory  of  space  as  only  a  principle  of  intuition  seems  to 


SPACE.  209 

favor  the  new  view ;  or,  at  least,  it  seems  more  credible  that 
space  should  appear  in  n  dimensions  than  that  it  should 
exist  in  n  dimensions.  If  space  exists  as  it  appears,  there 
seems  to  be  an  end  of  the  matter,  while  the  ideal  view 
leaves  the  question  open.  We  hope  to  show  that  the  ideal 
view  has  no  such  implication. 

The  principle  of  space  has  no  such  universality  as  the 
laws  .of  formal  thought.  These  condition  all  our  thinking, 
but  the  principle  of  space  conditions  only  our  intuition  of 
objects.  We  must  further  allow  that  all  forms  of  external 
experience  are  not  alike  calculated  to  awaken  the  mind  to 
react  with  a  spatialization  of  its  objects.  We  must  also  ad- 
mit that  our  nature  may  contain  mysterious  possibilities 
which  are  at  present  entirely  hidden.  It  is,  then,  possible 
that,  under  certain  forms  of  experience,  the  mind  would 
never  come  to  the  space-intuition.  It  is  equally  possible 
that,  under  other  forms  of  sense-experience,  the  mind  should 
arrange  its  objects  according  to  some  altogether  different 
principle,  so  as  to  have  a  new  form  of  intuition.  This  new 
form,  however,  would  not  be  space,  but  something  quite  pe- 
culiar. As  such,  it  would  be  related  to  the  space-intuition, 
as  our  sense  of  color  is  to  that  of  sound.  This,  of  course,  is 
a  mere  logical  possibility,  but  there  is  certainly  no  ground 
for  saying  that  the  space-intuition  is  the  only  one  possible 
in  the  nature  of  being.  If  there  were  any  ground  for  af- 
firming the  existence  of  such  a  new  form,  there  would  be 
nothing  apriori  incredible  in  it.  It  is  entirely  possible,  how- 
ever, to  hold,  along  with  this  admission,  that  the  space-intu- 
itiori  cannot  be  changed  in  its  essential  laws  and  nature. 

In  affirming  that  the  dimensions  of  space  are  necessarily 
three,  and  only  three,  it  is  important  to  premise  that  the 
planes  of  reference  are  perpendicular  each  to  the  other  two. 
Without  this  assumption,  the  dimensions  of  space  may  be  as 
many  as  we  please.  But,  with  this  assumption,  the  claim  is 
that  the  position  of  any  point  in  space  can  be  defined  by 
straight  lines  drawn  to  each  of  these  planes  of  reference. 
14 


210  METAPHYSICS. 

These  straight  lines  are  called  the  co-ordinates  of  the  point, 
and  they  tell  us  how  far  the  point  is  from  each  of  the  planes. 
The  three  planes  represent  the  dimensions  of  space.  Thus 
far  nothing  has  appeared  in  the  affirmative  which  is  not 
purely  hypothetical,  or  which  does  not  confound  the  dimen- 
sions of  things  in  space  with  the  dimensions  of  space  itself. 
The  first  class  of  arguments  consists  entirely  of  illustrations 
drawn  from  analytic  formulas.  It  is  well  known  that  the 
formulas  of  analytics  are  independent  of  geometrical  repre- 
sentation. So  far  as  the  analytic  reasoning  goes,  we  are  free 
to  choose  n  planes  of  reference,  if  we  make  no  attempt  at  spa- 
tial representation.  These  formulas,  however,  admit  of  such 
representation  when  there  are  only  three  perpendicular 
planes  of  reference ;  and  if  n  such  planes  were  possible, 
then  a  formula  involving  n  planes  would  also  be  represent- 
able.  But  this  is  far  enough  from  proving  that  n  planes 
are  possible ;  it  only  deduces  a  consequence  from  an  assumed 
possibility.  But  there  is  no  need  to  have  recourse  to  elab- 
orate formulas  to  deduce  this  small  conclusion.  There  is  to 
the  uninitiated  a  certain  air  of  mystery  in  an  involved  and 
transcendental  formula,  and  especially  in  a  formula  for  a 
"pseudo-spherical"  surface,  which  may  serve  to  impose  on 
the  illogical  mind,  but  the  argument  from  such  a  formula 
is  in  nothing  better  than  the  following :  In  algebra,  a  can 
be  represented  by  a  line  in  space,  a?  by  a  plane  surface,  and 
a3  by  a  cube ;  a*  and  all  higher  powers  are  unrepresentable. 
So  far  as  algebra  is  concerned,  it  is  a  mere  coincidence  that 
a,  «*,  and  a3  are  spatially  representable,  and  the  algebraic 
analysis  goes  on  in  complete  independence  of  space.  It 
deals  with  numbers  and  their  relations,  and  these  are  log- 
ical, and  not  spatial.  But  it  would  be  quite  easy  to  say 
that,  if  space  had  n  dimensions,  then  an  could  be  spatially 
represented  as  well  as  a  or  a?  or  a3,  and  the  argument  would 
be  just  as  forcible  as  the  mass  of  what  is  uttered  on  this 
subject.  In  fact,  mathematicians  have  fallen  a  prey  to 
their  own  terminology  in  this  matter.  Through  desiring  to 


SPACE.  211 

give  the  utmost  generality  to  their  analytic  formulas,  they 
have  constructed  them  without  any  regard  to  actual  space. 
Then  they  have  discovered  that,  to  make  them  representa- 
ble,  certain  limitations  must  be  made.  Thus  actual  space  is 
made  to  appear  as  a  special  case ;  and  this  is  called  flat 
space,  Euclidian  space,  etc.  But,  by  applying  an  adjective 
to  space,  they  have  suggested  to  themselves  the  possibility 
of  other  spaces,  and  forthwith  any  given  set  of  analytic  as- 
sumptions passes  for  a  space  of  the  nth  order.  By  this  time 
the  illusion  is  complete,  and  the  request  for  a  proof  that  those 
spaces  of  the  nth  order  represent  anything  but  analytic  as- 
sumptions is  resented  as  unkind. 

The  other  class  of  arguments  confounds  the  dimensions 
of  things  in  space  with  the  dimensions  of  space  itself.  If 
we  omit  reference  to  the  three  perpendicular  planes  of  ref- 
erence, a  thing  may  have  any  number  of  dimensions.  The 
various  utterances  concerning  a  curvature  of  space  are  all 
instances  of  this  confusion.  What  is  meant  by  a  curvature 
of  space  itself  is  something  which  defies  all  comprehension. 
It  is  assumed  that,  in  case  of  such  curvature,  straight  lines 
would  at  last  return  into  themselves ;  but  the  simple  fact 
would  be,  not  that  space  is  curved,  but  that  the  line  is  not 
straight,  but  curved.  This  would  be  quite  intelligible,  while 
the  doctrine  of  a  curved  space  is  quite  unintelligible.  If  it 
be  said  that  straight  lines  never  occur  in  reality,  we  have  no 
objection,  provided  the  claim  be  proved ;  but  this  is  differ- 
ent from  affirming  that  truly  straight  lines  are  not  straight, 
but  curved.  The  geometer  does  not  assume  anything  about 
the  reality  of  lines,  but  contents  himself  with  showing  what 
would  be  true  of  such  lines,  if  they  did  exist.  To  deter- 
mine the  content  and  implications  of  our  space-intuitions  is 
his  only  aim  ;  and,  knowing  that  these  intuitions  are  purely 
mental  products,  he  is  entirely  free  from  doubts  whether,  in 
some  outlying  regions  of  space,  these  principles  may  not  be 
invalid.  Space  being  in  the  mind,  and  space-figures  being 
mental  constructions,  they  will  always  have  the  meaning 


212  METAPHYSICS. 

which  the  mind  assigns  to  them,  and  hence  can  never  be  twist- 
ed out  of  their  proper  significance.  This  principle  of  a  cur- 
vature of  space  has  been  invoked  to  save  the  universe  from 
finally  running  down.  If  space  be  curved,  then  the  outgo- 
ing energy  will  at  last  be  restored,  and  the  system  may  keep 
agoing.  But  there  is  no  need  of  the  unintelligible  assump- 
tion of  a  curvature  of  space  to  express  this  result.  We  can 
simply  say  that,  if  the  nature  of  reality  be  such  that  radiant 
energy  moves  in  curved  lines,  then  it  will  at  last  come  back 
to  the  point  of  departure.  Of  course,  to  make  this  assump- 
tion of  any  use,  we  should  have  to  make  many  others,  but, 
such  as  it  is,  it  is  an  attack,  not  on  our  space-intuition,  but 
on  the  first  law  of  motion.  In  short,  all  the  illustrations  of 
a  space  of  ^dimensions  can  be  brought  into  entire  harmony 
with  our  space-intuition  by  substituting  for  a  curvature  of 
space  a  curvature  in  space,  and  for  n  dimensions  of  space  n 
dimensions  of  things  in  space.  This  part  of  the  doctrine 
seems  to  be  largely  due  to  the  pestilent  practice  of  viewing 
straight  lines  as  segments  of  circles  with  an  infinite  radius. 
This  custom,  together  with  the  allied  one  of  viewing  paral- 
lel lines  as  meeting  at  an  infinite  distance,  has  its  practical 
advantage,  but  when  it  results  in  confounding  all  definitions 
and  in  uttering  complete  nonsense,  it  is  high  time  to  inquire 
whether  the  advantage  be  not  too  dearly  purchased. 

A  poor  argument,  however,  though  a  suspicious  circum- 
stance, is  not  a  disproof  of  the  thing  to  be  proved.  The 
doctrine  of  n  dimensions  can  be  tested  only  by  a  direct  at- 
tempt to  realize  its  assumptions.  Where,  then,  is  the  nth 
dimension  to  be  found  ?  Zollner,  in  his  explanation  of  the 
disappearance  of  material  bodies  in  spiritistic  perform- 
ances, assumes  a  fourth  dimension  of  space,  into  which  the 
bodies  are  drawn  by  the  spirits.  If  there  were  beings  who 
could  observe  only  two  dimensions  of  space,  then  a  body 
which  moved  in  the  third  dimension  would  disappear  from 
their  vision.  If,  now,  there  be  a  fourth  dimension,  then  the 
spirits  have  only  to  draw  the  body  into  the  fourth  dimension 


.  vvuC^ 


SPACE.  213 

to  render  it  invisible.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  fourth 
dimension  interpenetrates  the  three  dimensions.  The  solid 
body  which  disappeared  was  not  out  of  the  room,  but  out 
of  its  three  dimensions.  And  yet  there  was  no  point  in 
the  room  which  could  not  be  defined  in  a  space  of  three  di- 
mensions. The  fourth  dimension,  therefore,  is  not  some- 
thing added  to  the  three  dimensions,  but  is  something  coin- 
cident with  them  ;  that  is,  it  is  not  a  space-dimension  at  all, 
but,  if  anything,  it  would  be  a  state  of  matter  in  which  it 
would  not  appear  in  any  way.  The  necessity  of  putting 
the  fourth  dimension  within  the  three  dimensions  deprives 
it  of  all  right  to  be  called  a  dimension  of  space.  Upon  the 
whole,  it  is  not  likely  that  the  performances  of  sleight-of- 
hand  tricksters  will  contribute  much  to  philosophic  dis- 
covery. 

The  relation  of  the  doctrine  to  geometry  is  not  clearly 
settled  in  the  minds  of  its  holders.  Some  would  view  it 
simply  as  an  extension  of  our  present  geometry;  while 
others  would  view  it  as  an  attack  upon  it.  If  we  conceive 
of  beings  dwelling  in  a  plane  and  limited  to  conceptions  of 
lines  in  a  plane,  it  is  possible  that  such  beings  should  form 
a  valid  plane  geometry ;  and  if  afterwards  they  should  ad- 
vance to  a  conception  of  the  third  dimension  of  space,  their 
early  geometry  would  be  extended  merely,  and  would  be  as 
valid  as  ever.  ISTow,  in  the  same  way,  it  may  be  claimed 
that  a  new  dimension  of  space  would  only  extend  our  pres- 
ent geometry  without  in  any  way  discrediting  it.  In  that 
case,  the  doctrine  could  be  tested  only  by  inquiring  whether 
the  notion  of  a  new  dimension  represents  anything  more 
than  a  gratuitous  assumption  which  defies  all  construction 
and  comprehension.  But  the  most  of  the  holders  of  the 
view  regard  it  as  conflicting  with  received  geometry,  and 
this  position  makes  it  possible  to  test  the  view  by  reflecting 
upon  the  character  of  geometrical  truth.  If  that  truth  be 
strictly  true,  then  any  doctrine  which  conflicts  with  it  is 
false.  The  believer  in  n  dimensions  will  have  to  disprove 


214:  METAPHYSICS. 

geometry  before  lie  can  maintain  his  theory.  If  he  insist 
that  straight  lines  return  into  themselves,  that  only  shows 
that  he  means  by  straight  lines  what  others  mean  by  curves. 
If  he  claim  that  parallel  lines  may  meet,  it  only  shows  that 
he  means  by  parallel  lines  what  others  mean  by  converging 
lines.  Nor  must  he  be  allowed  to  make  irrelevant  appeals 
to  the  nature  of  things,  for  geometry  does  not  concern  itself 
with  the  nature  of  things,  but  with  the  nature  and  implica- 
tions of  our  space-intuition. 

A  final  word  must  be  said  concerning  the  unity  of  our 
space-intuition.  It  is  often  assumed  that  there  may  be  be- 
ings which  see  things  in  only  one  or  two  dimensions,  and 
they  would,  of  course,  be  as  positive  about  the  impossibility 
of  a  third  dimension  as  we  are  about  a  fourth.  We  know, 
however,  that  they  would  be  mistaken,  and  what  better  right 
have  we  to  insist  on  our  view.  If  the  fourth  dimension  be 
assumed  to  contradict  what  we  know  of  the  three  dimen- 
sions, we  should  have  the  best  right  for  rejecting  it ;  and 
even  if  it  were  assumed  only  to  extend  our  view,  we  should 
have  a  right  based  on  the  unity  of  our  space-intuition.  For 
these  beings  who  see  things  only  in  one  or  two  dimensions 
are  pure  myths,  and  their  possibility  is  far  from  apparent. 
To  begin  with,  the  assumption  that  reality  admits  of  any 
number  of  space-intuitions  falls  back  into  the  popular  form 
of  Kantianism,  according  to  which  reality  itself  is  quite  in- 
different to  the  forms  of  thought.  But  this  is  to  divorce 
thought  and  reality  entirely,  and  to  leave  the  thought  with- 
out any  ground  or  explanation.  But  if  reality  is  to  explain 
thought,  then  a  given  phase  of  reality  admits  only  of  a  given 
representation  in  thought.  This  notion  that  thought  can 
shift  about  and  view  reality  in  any  and  every  way,  betrays 
a  total  lack  of  appreciation  of  causation ;  it  is  the  supersti- 
tion of  a  time  which  had  no  conception  of  law  whatever. 
Besides,  our  intuition  of  space  is  not  built  up  by  adding  one 
dimension  after  another;  but  the  first  and  second  dimen- 
sions are  reached  by  abstracting  from  the  unitary  intuition 


SPACE.  215 

of  a  space  of  three  dimensions.  Given  this  intuition,  it  is 
easy  to  attend  to  one  dimension  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other 
two ;  but  they  could  not  be  directly  reached,  for  the  follow- 
ing reasons :  Suppose  a  being  with  an  intuition  of  only  one 
dimension  of  space.  At  first  we  are  tempted  to  think  of 
that  one  dimension  as  a  line;  but  this  it  could  not  be,  because, 
to  see  it  as  a  line,  the  being  must  be  outside  of  the  line,  and 
the  line  must  be  across  the  direction  of  vision.  But  this 
would  imply  two  dimensions  of  space — the  direction  of  the 
line  of  vision,  and  that  of  the  line  perceived.  If  we  confine 
him  strictly  to  one  dimension,  the  line  must  take  the  direc- 
tion of  the  line  of  vision,  and  this  would  become  a  point. 
But  this  point  again  could  never  be  known  as  such,  except 
in  relation  to  other  points  outside  of  the  line,  and  as  this  is 
contrary  to  the  hypothesis,  it  could  never  be  known  as  a 
point  at  all.  The  line  itself  is  without  breadth  or  thickness, 
and  the  being,  if  it  knew  itself  as  related  to  the  line,  must 
know  itself  as  in  the  line ;  and  all  its  other  objects  must  be 
in  the  line,  and  hence  all  alike  must  be  known  as  without 
breadth  or  thickness.  For  us  who  have  the  full  space-intui- 
tion, it  is  easy  to  abstract  from  two  dimensions  and  consider 
only  the  line ,  but  for  the  being  who  has  only  the  one  di- 
mension, the  space-intuition  would  be  impossible. 

The  same  is  true  for  the  two  dimensions.  In  this  case, 
the  being  would  be  in  a  plane,  but  without  any  thickness. 
He  cannot  rise  above  the  plane  to  look  at  it,  for  this  would 
be  to  invoke  the  third  dimension.  He  must  stay  then  in 
the  surface,  and  must  find  all  his  objects  in  that  surface. 
But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  we  are  led  to  the  conception 
of  a  surface  only  by  our  experience  with  solids;  we  reach 
it  by  abstraction  of  the  third  dimension.  If  there  were  no 
third  dimension,  we  should  certainly  never  have  come  to  the 
notion  of  either  line  or  surface.  This  being,  however,  who 
is  in  the  surface,  and  who  knows  nothing  of  any  points  out- 
side of  the  surface,  would  never  know  the  surface  at  all. 
The  surface  is  conceivable  only  as  a  limit  between  different 


216  METAPHYSICS. 

parts  of  space,  and  as  these  are  impossible,  the  limit  between 
them  is  also  impossible.  We  view  our  space-intuition  as 
properly  a  unit  and  not  as  compounded  of  separate  factors, 
and  these  factors  which  we  separate  in  thought  are  abstrac- 
tions, which  are  possible  only  through  the  unity  of  space  as 
a  form  of  three  dimensions.  All  our  dealing  with  the  first 
and  second  dimensions  of  space  imply  the  three  dimensions. 
For  the  present,  those  who  affirm  that  space  may  have  n  di- 
mensions must  be  judged  either  to  be  calling  a  series  of  an- 
alytic assumptions  by  the  misleading  name  of  space,  or  else 
simply  to  be  making  a  noise. 


TIME.  217 


CHAPTER  II. 

TIME. 

ACCORDING  to  the  popular  view,  the  world  is  in  space  and 
has  its  history  in  time.  We  have  found  ourselves  compelled 
to  deny  that  the  world  is  in  space,  for  spatiality  is  only  phe- 
nomenal. We  have  next  to  inquire  whether  the  world's 
history  in  time  is  an  ontological  or  only  a  phenomenal  fact. 
Kant  made  the  same  argument  do  for  both  space  and  time ; 
but  there  are  many  difficulties  in  the  case  of  time  which  do 
not  exist  in  that  of  space,  and  which  compel  a  separate  dis- 
cussion. The  subjectivity  of  time  is  by  no  means  involved 
in  that  of  space.  At  the  same  time  much  that  was  said  in 
the  previous  chapter  will  apply  here. 

As  in  the  case  of  space,  we  distinguish  between  the  onto- 
logical and  the  psychological  question.  We  do  not  ask  how 
we  come  to  the  notion  of  time,  but  what  it  stands  for  after 
we  get  it.  Is  it  an  existence,  or  a  mode  of  existence,  or 
only  a  mode  of  our  thinking? 

Kant  set  the  example  of  calling  space  and  time  forms  of 
intuition,  and  this  has  led  to  a  very  general  assumption 
among  philosophers  that  we  have  a  proper  intuition  of  time, 
such  as  we  have  of  space.  It  is,  therefore,  a  matter  of  great 
surprise,  on  looking  around  for  this  intuition,  to  find  it 
wanting.  We  grasp  coexistences  in  a  single  space- image 
which  is  sui  generis  ;  and  when  we  think  the  things  away, 
we  are  still  able  to  outline  the  space  as  such.  With  time 
this  is  impossible.  We  cannot  comprehend  events  in  a  sin- 
gle temporal  image,  and  when  the  events  are  thought  away 


218  METAPHYSICS. 

there  is  nothing  remaining,  even  in  imagination,  which  has 
a  temporal  character.  As  has  often  been  pointed  out,  all 
our  representations  of  time  are  images  borrowed  from  space, 
and  all  alike  contain  contradictions  of  the  time-idea.  We 
think  of  it  as  an  endless  straight  line,  but  the  conception 
fails  to  fit ;  for  the  points  of  such  a  line  coexist,  while  of 
the  time-line  only  the  present  point  exists.  We  think  of  it 
also  as  a  flowing  point  which  describes  a  straight  line,  but 
here  also  we  implicitly  assume  a  space  througli  which  the 
point  moves ;  and  without  this  assumption  the  illustration 
loses  all  meaning.  Or  if  we  wish  to  form  a  conception  of 
earlier  and  later,  we  do  it  by  positing  a  line  over  which  we 
are  to  move  in  thought ;  and  we  measure  the  time  by  the 
motion  and  its  direction.  The  temporal  before-and-after  is 
represented  only  by  the  spatial  before-and-after.  Nor  are 
we  content  to  borrow  figures  from  the  one  dimension  of 
space ;  in  dealing  with  the  system  we  generally  have  two 
dimensions,  and  sometimes  three.  Since  space  is  filled  with 
coexistences,  all  of  which  are  alike  in  the  same  time,  the 
time-line  is  extended  to  all  these.  Thus  the  line  becomes  a 
cylinder,  and  the  point  becomes  a  plane;  while  the  time 
passed  over  by  the  moving  plane  remains  behind  as  a  kind 
of  third  dimension.  But  in  all  these  cases  we  have  only 
space-images,  which  are  applied  to  time  only  by  metaphor. 
We  cannot,  then,  properly  call  time  a  form  of  intuition  cor- 
responding to  it.  In  itself  it  is  rather  a  certain  unpicturable 
order  of  events.  Whenever  we  attempt  to  picture  it,  we 
replace  temporal  sequence  by  spatial  sequence. 

What,  then,  is  time?  The  popular  view  of  time  closely 
resembles  that  of  space.  Time  is  conceived  as  an  existence 
sui  generis,  which  exists  apart  from  things,  losing  nothing 
by  their  absence,  and  gaining  nothing  by  their  presence.  It 
is  independent,  and  hence  without  any  essential  relation  to 
being,  but  moves  on  in  ceaseless  and  steady  flow  forever. 
Like  space,  it  is  one  of  the  necessities  which  being  can  nei- 
ther create  nor  annihilate,  and  to  which  it  must  submit. 


TIME.  219 

This  view  seems  self-evident  in  its  clearness  at  first  glance, 
and  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  some  speculator  should 
order  up  an  intuition  in  support  of  it.  But,  in  spite  of  the 
intuition  and  the  apparent  self-evidence,  the  clearness  of 
this  view  turns  out,  upon  inquiry,  to  be  delusive.  It  is  un- 
tenable on  two  accounts :  (1)  By  making  time  independent 
of  being  it  sins  against  the  law  of  reason,  which  forbids  all 
plurality  of  independent  principles.  This  fact,  which  we 
have  sufficiently  illustrated  in  previous  chapters,  is  conclu- 
sive against  the  independence  of  time.  Whatever  time  may 
be,  it  is  no  independent  reality  apart  from  being.  (2)  The 
view  which  regards  time  as  a  real  existence  is  hopelessly 
unclear  and  inconsistent  in  its  assumptions  and  implications. 
Many  qualities  and  functions  are  attributed  to  time  in  spon- 
taneous thinking,  which  have  only  to  be  pointed  out  to  be 
rejected,  because  they  are  inconsistent  with  the  time-idea. 
To  begin  with,  it  is  not  clear  whether  time,  in  the  popular 
view,  is  regarded  as  standing  or  flowing.  Sometimes  it  is 
said  to  comprehend  in  its  unity  past,  present,  and  future 
alike ;  and  in  its  totality  it  is  identical  with  eternity.  There 
is  but  one  time,  as  there  is  but  one  space ;  and  all  particular 
times  are  but  parts  of  the  one  time.  Sometimes  it  is  said 
to  flow,  and  sometimes  it  is  mentioned  as  the  standing  con- 
dition of  all  flow.  In  one  view  time  itself  flows,  and  events 
flow  with  it ;  and  in  another  view  time  stands,  and  events 
flow  in  it  as  a  space,  or  through  it  as  a  channel,  or  move 
across  it  as  a  background.  All  of  these  conceptions  appear 
in  the  popular  thought  of  time,  and  all  are  attended  with 
great  difficulties.  If  we  regard  time  as  a  whole  as  existing, 
and  thus  embracing  past,  present,  and  future,  then  time  as 
a  whole  stands,  and  the  flow  is  put  in  things,  and  not  in 
time.  In  that  case  the  distinction  between  past  and  future 
would  not  be  in  time  itself,  but  in  things,  and  especially  in 
the  observer's  standpoint.  The  past  would  not  be  the  non- 
existing,  but  that  which  has  been  experienced.  The  future 
also  would  not  be  the  non-existing,  but  simply  that  which 


220  METAPHYSICS. 

we  have  not  yet  experienced.  There  would  be  nothing  in 
this  view  to  forbid  the  thought  that  things  might  coexist 
at  different  points  of  the  temporal  sequence.  There  would 
also  be  nothing  in  it  to  forbid  the  conception  of  a  being 
which  should  fill  out  the  totality  of  time,  as  the  omnipres- 
ent fills  out  space,  and  for  whose  thought  the  past  and  the 
future  should  alike  coexist.  Thus  quite  unexpectedly  we 
come  down  to  the  notion  of  the  eternal  now.  But  this  is 
just  the  opposite  of  what  the  popular  view  means  to  say. 
Common-sense  insists  that  time  itself  flows  as  well  as  the 
events  within  it.  In  truth,  this  notion  of  an  empty  time, 
with  things  flowing  through  it,  is  simply  the  image  of  empty 
space  which  has  been  mistaken  for  that  of  time.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  if  we  do  not  regard  time  as  existing  as  a 
whole,  then  we  are  shut  up  to  the  affirmation  that  only 
the  present  exists.  This  view  also  is  held  by  spontaneous 
thought;  and  upon  occasion  it  is  stoutly  affirmed  that  all 
existence  is  contained  in  the  narrow  plane  of  the  present. 
But  the  present  has  no  duration,  and  is  not  time  at  all.  It 
is  but  the  plane  which,  without  thickness,  divides  past  and 
future.  Time,  then,  is  not  made  up  of  past,  present,  and 
future,  but  of  past  and  future  only ;  and,  as  these  do  not 
exist,  time  itself  cannot  exist.  It  avails  nothing  against  this 
conclusion  to  call  the  present  the  passage  of  the  future  into 
the  past ;  for  this  passage  must  require  time,  or  it  must  not. 
If  it  require  time,  then  it  is  itself  susceptible  of  division 
into  past  and  future.  If  it  be  timeless,  then  time  once  more 
falls  into  past  and  future,  and  has  no  existence  whatever. 
Besides,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  we  can  speak  of  the  pas- 
sage of  the  future  into  the  past  when  both  alike  are  non- 
existent. Such  a  passage  can  be  represented  only  by  a 
reality  moving  across  a  certain  line,  but  which  is  equally 
real  on  both  sides  of  the  line ;  and  this  notion  is  inapplica- 
ble to  time.  When  the  moving  reality  is  real  only  on  the 
line,  it  cannot  cross  it.  It  is  equally  hard  to  see  how,  on 
this  view,  time  can  have  any  duration.  The  past  was  once 


TIME.  221 

present,  so  that  past  time  is  made  up  of  moments  which 
once  were  present.  Bat  if  the  present  have  no  duration,  no 
sum  of  present  moments  can  have  any  duration.  Kor  does 
it  relieve  the  matter  to  say  that  time,  like  space,  is  continu- 
ous, and  that  units  of  both  are  but  arbitrary  sections  of  the 
indivisible.  Space  can,  indeed,  be  divided  by  a  plane  into 
right  and  left,  so  that  the  space  to  the  right  and  that  to  the 
left  shall  make  up  all  space ;  but  this  does  not  represent  the 
relation  of  past  and  future,  for  the  two  divisions  exist  as 
real  in  the  case  of  space,  while  in  time  they  are  non-existent. 
If  the  space  occupied  by  the  plane  were  alone  real,  their 
space  also  could  not  exist,  for  the  plane  is  only  a  limit,  and 
occupies  no'  space.  And  if  the  plane  should  move  under 
such  circumstances,  it  would  not  pass  over  any  space  or  gen- 
erate any  volume,  for  each  integral  of  volume  would  perish 
as  fast  as  born.  The  plane  would  continue  to  be  all,  and 
space  would  be  nothing.  This  is  the  case  with  time.  The 
plane  is  all,  and  duration  is  never  reached.  When  we  at- 
tempt to  conceive  duration,  we  must  have  recourse  to  space- 
illustrations,  which  are  implicit  contradictions  of  the  time- 
idea.  Time  cannot  exist,  and  things  cannot  exist  in  time. 
But  if,  to  escape  these  difficulties,  we  allow  that  the  present 
is  a  moment  with  proper  duration,  it  is  plain  that  this  mo- 
ment must  lie  partly  in  the  past  and  partly  in  the  future, 
or  else  that  duration  is  not  indefinitely  divisible.  Either 
assumption  would  swamp  us  by  bringing  the  time-idea  into 
contradiction  with  itself. 

The  notion  of  a  resting  time  is  in  sharp  contradiction  to 
all  the  current  notions  of  time ;  does  the  notion  of  a  flowing 
time  fare  any  better?  We  will  not  insist  that  the  notion 
of  a  flow  in  time  is  itself  a  metaphor  borrowed  from  space, 
and  cannot  be  represented  without  thinking  of  a  channel  or 
a  background  through  or  across  which  the  flow  takes  place. 
The  notion  itself  is  inconsistent.  If  time  as  a  whole  flows, 
then  we  have  a  flow,  that  of  time,  which  is  not  in  time. 
But  if  this  flow  be  out  of  time,  why  not  all  other  flows  ? 


222  METAPHYSICS. 

To  meet  this  objection,  it  is  said  that  not  time  as  a  whole 
flows,  but  only  its  several  moments.  But  this  view  is  a 
return  to  the  notion  of  a  resting  time.  It  implies  that  time 
is  not  the  sum  of  its  moments ;  for  if  it  were,  the  flow  of 
the  moments  would  be  the  flow  of  time  as  a  whole.  Time, 
then,  would  be  the  resting  background  of  the  passing  mo- 
ments. But  in  that  case  the  difficulties  just  mentioned 
would  all  return,  and  we  should  have  the  additional  problem 
of  the  relation  of  the  moving  moments  to  the  resting  back- 
ground and  to  one  another.  The  rest  does  not  explain  the 
motion.  Moments,  moreover,  are  only  arbitrary  divisions 
made  by  the  mind  itself ;  and  if  they  were  not,  it  is  hard  to 
see  why  the  moment  a  should  give  place  to  the  moment  J, 
or  how  b  could  be  distinguished  from  a  prolonged.  The 
view  really  hypostasizes  the  moments,  and  attributes  to 
them  a  power  of  mutual  exclusion  and  propulsion.  It  pos- 
its an  interaction  among  the  moments,  and  makes  them 
things.  The  impossibility  of  this  view  is  self-evident. 
Time  itself,  then,  must  flow ;  but  how  the  flow  of  time  in 
itself  could  be  distinguished  from  its  non-flow  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  tell.  Each  moment  is  exactly  like  every  other,  and 
hence  is  uudistinguishable  from  any  other.  Hence  in  pure 
time,  flow  and  non-flow  would  be  without  distinction ;  not 
to  mention  the  fact  that  the  flowing  time  would  need  an- 
other time  to  flow  in.  Even  the  direction  of  this  flow  is 
not  clearly  determined  in  the  popular  view.  Is  it  from  the 
future  to  the  past,  or  is  it  from  the  past  to  the  future? 
When  we  speak  of  the  world-movement,  we  always  think  of 
it  as  having  moved  through  the  past,  and  as  progressing  tow- 
ards and  through  the  future.  But  when  we  speak  of  the 
flow  of  time,  we  often  reverse  the  movement ;  and,  instead 
of  making  the  past  penetrate  the  future,  we  let  the  future 
vanish  into  the  past.  This  arises  from  the  implications  of 
the  metaphor  employed.  In  case  of  a  flowing  stream,  the 
movement  is  towards  the  observer  on  the  one  side  and  from 
him  on  the  other ;  and  up-stream  is  on  the  side  from  which 


TIME.  223 

the  movement  comes.  But  the  time-movement  brings  the 
future  nearer  and  nearer,  and  carries  the  past  farther  and 
farther  away.  Hence  the  movement  is  thought  of  as  from 
the  future  towards  the  past.  Thus  the  movement  of  time 
reverses  that  of  things ;  and  yet  we  do  not  hesitate  to  speak 
of  time  as  flowing  and  carrying  all  things  with  it.  But, 
leaving  this  critical  scruple,  the  notion  of  a  resting  time 
contradicts  all  notions  of  time ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
notion  of  a  flowing  time  results  in  a  mental  vacuum.  Both 
views  involve  not  merely  mystery,  but  inconsistency  and 
contradiction.  Their  exceeding  clearness  and  self-evidence 
are  due  to  the  space-metaphors  in  which  the  doctrines  are 
expressed;  and  these  metaphors,  upon  examination,  turn 
out  to  be  inconsistent  and  inapplicable. 

The  other  functions  which  are  attributed  to  time  as  an 
independent  reality  are  still  more  impossible.  Time,  as  a 
reality,  is  said  to  condition  all  change  and  activity ;  but  this 
is  impossible,  unless  time  be  an  agent.  The  conditions  of 
change  are  not  to  be  found  in  time,  but  only  in  things. 
Change  is  always  an  effect,  and  requires  a  cause;  but  no 
one  views  time  as  causal.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the 
conditions  of  an  effect  are  present,  there  is  no  need  of  time 
for  its  realization,  as  if  the  flow  of  empty  time  could  give 
to  reality  some  power  which  it  does  not  possess.  An  eter- 
nity of  void  time  would  contain  nothing  which  an  infini- 
tesimal time  does  not;  and  neither  is  a  source  of  power. 
Hence  in  inquiring  for  the  causes  of  an  effect,  we  leave 
time  out  of  the  question  ;  because  it  can  add  or  subtract 
nothing.  The  delay  of  an  effect,  therefore,  is  not  due  to 
the  lack  of  time,  but  to  the  fact  that  not  all  the  causal  con- 
ditions are  fulfilled.  Without  making  time  a  cause,  we 
cannot  allow  that  change  has  any  ground  in  time,  but  must 
found  it  only  in  the  metaphysical  interactions  of  things. 
But  we  cannot  make  time  a  cause  without  violating  all  our 
notions  of  time,  and  without  providing  another  time  as  the 
condition  of  its  action.  If,  then,  we  consider  time  as  either 


22±  METAPHYSICS. 

resting  or  flowing,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  assign  any  artic- 
ulate relation  in  which  it  can  stand  to  things  or  events.  It 
neither  acts  nor  is  acted  upon,  but  remains  a  mere  ghost 
outside  of  being,  contributing  nothing  and  determining 
nothing.  It  does  not  even  measure  anything ;  for  our 
units  of  time  are  not  taken  from  time,  but  from  some 
change  in  things — a  revolution  of  the  earth,  the  swing  of 
a  pendulum,  etc. 

Thus  the  notion  of  time  as  a  real  existence  shows  itself 
on  every  hand  as  a  congeries  of  contradictions,  and  must  be 
given  up.  The  impossibility  of  more  than  one  independent 
principle  forbids  us  to  admit  the  independent  existence  of 
time.  Whatever  it  may  be,  it  depends  on  being  as  a  conse- 
quence or  creation.  But  the  attempt  to  think  of  time  as  a 
substantive  fact  breaks  down  from  its  inherent  unclearness 
and  contradiction.  This  view  of  time,  when  analyzed,  is  al- 
ways found  to  deny  itself.  Conceived  as  resting  or  flowing, 
time  is  absurd.  Conceived  as  real,  it  cannot  be  brought  into 
any  relations  to  things  without  positing  an  interaction  be- 
tween them ;  and  then  we  need  a  new  time  as  the  condition 
of  this  interaction,  and  this  would  lead  to  an  endless  regress. 
Time,  then,  cannot  be  viewed  as  a  substantive  fact  created 
or  uncreated.  As  a  whole,  time  does  not  exist,  and  reality 
is  not  in  time  any  more  than  it  is  in  space. 

The  reality  of  time  as  commonly  held  cannot  be  main- 
tained ;  we  have  now  to  inquire  whether  the  ideality  of  time 
is  any  more  tenable.  According  to  this  view,  time,  like 
space,  is  only  the  subjective  aspect  of  things  and  processes 
which  are  essentially  non-temporal.  Since  the  time  of  Kant, 
this  view  has  been  held  as  being  as  well  established  as  the 
ideality  of  space;  but  in  fact  it  is  much  more  difficult  to 
receive  than  the  latter.  We  have  a  clear  experience  of  the 
possibility  of  thinking  and  feeling  apart  from  space.  We 
do  not  regard  our  souls  as  spatial;  and  space-relations  do  not 
enter  into  our  internal  experience  in  any  way.  That  there 


TIME.  225 

should  be  existence  apart  from  space  is  not,  therefore,  so 
difficult  a  conception.  With  time  the  case  is  different.  It 
enters  into  our  entire  mental  life,  and  cannot  by  any  means 
be  escaped.  Hence  we  cannot  appeal  to  any  non-temporal 
experiences  to  aid  our  thought ;  and  nothing  remains  but  to 
analyze  the  notion,  and  see  if  we  cannot  reach  a  standpoint 
from  which  the  difficulties  may,  at  least  to  some  extent,  dis- 
appear. The  holders  of  the  doctrine  have  taken  it  all  too 
easy  in  this  respect.  They  have  contented  themselves  with 
arguments  which  show  the  ideality  of  space,  and  have  not 
bestowed  upon  time  the  attention  which  the  peculiar  diffi- 
culties of  the  problem  demand.  We  proceed  to  examine  the 
attempts  to  make  the  subjectivity  of  time  credible. 

If  reality  were  a  changeless  system  of  things  in  change- 
less relations,  like  the  members  of  a  thought-system,  or  like 
the  ideas  of  Plato's  philosophy,  it  would  be  easy  to  view  the 
sequence  of  things  in  our  experience  as  only  a  sequence  of 
knowledge,  and  as  due  entirely  to  our  finiteness.  Thus, 
mathematical  truths  coexist ;  but  we  grasp  them  successive- 
ly, not  because  they  really  succeed  in  time,  but  because  our 
finite  minds  are  unable  to  grasp  them  all  at  once.  Hence 
we  are  often  tempted  to  think  that  the  earlier  propositions 
in  geometry  precede  and  found  the  later.  But  a  moment's 
reflection  convinces  us  that  the  only  relation  in  this  case  is 
that  of  logical  sequence,  and  that  the  apparent  temporal 
sequence  is  merely  the  reflection  of  our  own  finiteness, 
which  compels  us  to  grasp  successively  what  exists  simulta- 
neously. A  perfect  insight  into  truth  would  grasp  it  in  one 
changeless  intuition,  and  the  illusion  would  not  exist.  If 
now  the  world  were  such  a  system  of  logical  relations,  it 
would  be  entirely  credible  that  time  is  not  only  subjective, 
but  exists  only  for  the  finite,  being  in  every  case  but  a  reflex 
of  limited  power.  It  might  be  said  that  even  in  this  case 
we  could  not  dispute  the  reality  of  time,  for  time  is  given 
not  merely  in  the  movement  of  the  outer  world,  but  also 
and  pre-eminently  in  the  movement  of  thought.  But  this 
15 


226  METAPHYSICS. 

objection  would  be  invalid,  for  this  psychologic  time  would 
be  nothing  but  a  subjective  fact,  and  would  have  no  signifi- 
cance for  the  changeless  reality,  or  for  the  omniscient  mind 
which  should  grasp  it  in  its  changeless  intuition.  Time 
would  be  simply  a  movement  in  the  finite  mind,  while  for 
the  infinite  there  would  be  an  eternal  now. 

Unfortunately,  this  illustration  is  not  entirely  applicable 
to  the  case  in  hand,  at  least  unless  we  adopt  the  Eleatic  no- 
tion of  being.  For  the  Eleatics  there  is  no  need  of  time. 
Action  and  change  do  not  exist;  and  things  are  but  the 
eternal  consequences  of  being,  just  as  all  mathematics  is 
eternally  existent  in  the  basal  axioms  and  intuitions.  In 
such  a  scheme,  time  cannot  be  anything  but  an  unaccount- 
able illusion  in  finite  thought.  But  we  are  already  commit- 
ted to  the  Heraclitic  view  of  being  as  the  only  one  compati- 
ble with  the  law  of  causation.  For  us,  things  are  not  resting 
in  changeless  logical  relations,  but  are  active  and  changing ; 
and  hence  it  is  impossible  to  reach  the  ideality  of  time  by 
eliminating  change  from  being.  "We  must  put  motion  in 
things  as  well  as  in  the  observer.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  notion  of  time  seems  the  great  dividing-wall  between 
Heraclitus  and  the  Eleatics.  When  we  exclude  time,  cause 
and  effect  must  coexist ;  and  then  the  effect  is  not  produced 
by  the  cause,  but  is  only  its  logical  implication.  Without  a 
real  before -and -after,  it  seems  impossible  to  prevent  the 
dynamic  relations  of  reality  from  vanishing  into  purely  log- 
ical relations;  and  this  would  be  to  abandon  Heraclitus  and 
return  to  Spinoza  and  the  Eleatics.  The  alternative  can  be 
escaped  only  by  showing  that  change  does  not  imply  time 
as  an  actual  existence,  but  that  time  is  only  the  subjective 
appearance  of  change.  If  this  can  be  made  out,  there  will 
be  no  difficulty  in  accepting  the  ideal  theory. 

But,  before  passing  to  this  question,  we  must  consider  an 
objection  springing  out  of  the  illustration  from  a  changeless 
system.  It  may  be  said  that  we  confound  time  with  dura- 
tion. Time  itself  may  be  viewed  as  a  correlate  of  change ; 


TIME.  227 

but  if  there  were  no  change,  the  changeless  would  still  en- 
dure. If,  then,  we  should  adopt  the  Eleatic  conception  of 
changeless  being,  so  that  all  the  consequences  of  being  should 
changelessly  coexist  with  it,  being  as  a  whole  would  still 
have  duration.  There  would  be  no  sequence,  but  there 
would  be  duration.  This  distinction  between  time  and  du- 
ration, though  it  has  often  appeared,  especially  in  theology, 
we  cannot  view  as  tenable.  For  duration  can  only  mean 
continuous  existence  through  time,  and  without  the  notion 
of  time  duration  loses  all  significance.  The  only  reason  for 
distinguishing  separate  times  in  the  changeless  would  be  the 
sequence  of  mental  states  in  ourselves;  and  this  sequence 
itself  is  change,  and  hence  contrary  to  the  hypothesis.  We 
can  give  duration  significance,  as  applied  to  the  changeless, 
only  on  the  assumption  of  an  independent  flowing  time, 
which  moves  on  ceaselessly  and  carries  being  with  it.  But 
this  view  we  have  found  empty  and  impossible,  and  hence 
we  do  not  allow  that  duration  has  any  application  to  change- 
less existence.  Such  being  simply  is,  and  the  distinction  of 
past  and  future  does  not  exist.  Even  the  "  is  "  we  view  as 
an  affirmation  of  being,  and  not  as  a  present  tense.  The 
difficulty  in  accepting  this  view  is  due  partly  to  an  implicit 
return  to  the  notion  of  an  independent  time,  and  partly  to 
the  fact  that  even  in  such  a  fixed  state  we  assume  ourselves 
as  present  with  all  our  mental  changes. 

Time,  then,  depends  on  change;  and  the  idealist's  claim 
must  be  that  time  is  but  the  subjective  aspect  of  change,  or 
the  way  in  which  we  conceive  change.  An  attempt  is  often 
made  to  escape  time  by  a  rhetorical  device,  as  follows: 
Long  and  short  are  relative  terms,  and  our  estimate  of  dura- 
tion is  purely  subjective.  The  time  which  is  long  to  one  is 
short  to  another,  according  to  the  state  of  mind.  With  God 
a  thousand. years  are  as  one  day ;  and  even  to  the  old  man  a 
long  life  is  as  a  tale  that  is  told,  or  as  a  watch  in  the  night. 
The  whole  of  human  history  is  nothing  to  the  periods  of 
geology ;  and  these,  again,  shrink  to  insignificance  when  we 


228  METAPHYSICS. 

ascend  to  the  cycles  of  astronomy.  What,  then,  it  is  said, 
are  all  finite  periods  to  Him  who  inhabits  eternity  ?  Ke- 
marks  of  this  kind  have  a  certain  value  in  arousing  the  feel- 
ing of  wonder ;  but  they  are  valueless  in  philosophical  spec- 
ulation. No  doubt  our  feeling  of  length  of  time  is  purely 
relative  and  subjective ;  indeed,  if  the  world-process  did  not 
exist  as  a  common  time-keeper,  every  man  would  have  his 
own  time.  Time  is  one  only  because  we  measure  it  by  ref- 
erence to  the  same  objective  process,  or  to  the  same  con- 
sciousness. But  the  before-and-after  of  things  is  not  a  matter 
of  feeling.  Relatively,  the  whole  measure  of  finite  existence 
may  shrink  to  a  span,  but  the  time-order  remains  unchanged. 
Something  more  powerful,  therefore,  must  be  found,  if  we 
are  to  succeed  in  reducing  time  to  a  purely  subjective  ex- 
istence. 

The  argument  has  been  partly  anticipated  in  a  previous 
paragraph,  when  speaking  of  time  as  a  cause  of  change. 
We  continue  it  by  pointing  out  that  change  itself  is  non- 
temporal,  or  without  distinction  of  before-and-after.  In  the 
first  place,  as  we  have  before  pointed  out,  change  depends 
not  on  time,  but  on  the  interactions  of  things;  and  when 
the  conditions  of  change  are  fulfilled,  there  is  no  reason  why 
the  change  should  delay.  If  we  suppose  that  time  does 
something  which  was  lacking,  or  breaks  down  some  hinder- 
ance  to  the  change,  or  exercises  some  repressive  action,  we 
make  time  a  thing  with  active  powers ;  and  this  view  every 
one  repudiates.  But  if  we  do  not  do  this,  there  is  no  escape 
from  admitting  that  the  fulfilment  of  the  conditions  and 
the  entrance  of  the  change  are  absolutely  coexistent.  For 
empty  time  can  do  nothing ;  and  one  cannot  see  why,  in  such 
a  case,  a  greater  flow  of  time,  provided  the  phrase  in  general 
meant  anything,  should  be  more  effective  than  a  lesser  flow. 
Certainly  n  minutes  could  do  no  more  than  ^  minutes;  and 
infinite  time  would  furnish  nothing  not  contained  in  infin- 
itesimal time.  The  integral  of  emptiness  is  always  empti- 
ness ;  and  no  addition  of  zeros  can  produce  a  sum.  We 


TIME.  229 

must,  then,  regard  the  event  as  coincident  with  the  fulfil- 
ment of  its  conditions.  Any  given  change  is  timeless ;  and 
it  is  impossible  to  detect  in  it  any  element  of  before-and- 
after.  If  A  becomes  A15  the  change  must  take  place  in  an 
indivisible  moment,  that  is,  it  can  occupy  no  duration.  As 
long  as  A  and  Al  are  separated,  even  by  an  infinitesimal  mo- 
ment, so  long  A  is  A  and  not  Ar  It  does  not  first  cease  to 
be  A  and  then  become  Av  but  it  ceases  to  be  A  in  becoming 
Ar  The  ceasing  and  the  becoming  are  identical ;  they  are 
,  but  opposite  sides  of  the  same  fact,  and  Q?Q  without  temporal 
1  U*  distinction.  If  we  attempt  to  make  such  a  distinction,  we 
'••  ^involve  ourselves  in  absolute  contradiction,  as  Zeno  long 
since  pointed  out.  But  if  becoming  is  non-temporal,  then 
the  fact  that  reality  is  in  action  and  in  change  does  not  im- 
ply the  reality  of  time;  and  the  distinction  of  before-and- 
after  which  we  make  are  but  the  mental  co-ordinates  by  which 
we  get  the  equation  of  becoming;  and  time  is  but  the  subjec- 
tive aspect  of  change  or  becoming. 

The  following  objection  at  once  emerges :  the  single  in- 
stance of  change,  as  from  A  to  Aj,  may  indeed  present  no 
distinction  of  before-and-after,  but  the  sequences  of  reality 
are  manifold,  and  stretch  from  A  to  An ;  and  An  again  is 
removed  from  A  by  an  indefinite  number  of  intervening 
changes.  In  the  world-process,  for  example,  the  series  of 
changes  is  practically  limitless,  stretching  through  ages  and 
ages ;  and  it  is  quite  idle,  then,  to  seek  to  escape  time  by 
eliminating  it  from  a  single  change.  It  must  be  eliminated 
from  the  whole  series  before  we  can  renounce  it.  But,  for 
some  reason  or  other,  we  are  not  as  much  impressed  by  this 
objection  as  we  are  expected  to  be.  For  in  the  world-proc- 
ess there  is  perpetual  flow  and  becoming;  and  if  the  pas- 
sage from  A  to  Ax  shows  no  sign  of  before-and-after,  then 
the  passage  from  A  to  A2  shows  also  no  such  trace,  and 
hence  the  entire  process  from  A  to  An  cannot  show  it.  An 
is  separated  from  A  not  by  time,  but  by  the  intervening 
members;  and  the  relation  of  An  to  A  is  for  the  pure  reason 


230  METAPHYSICS. 

not  a  relation  of  sequence  but  of  dependence.  It  is  this  re- 
lation which  for  our  time -thought  appears  as  sequence. 
There  is  no  before-and-after  in  reality,  but  a  variously  con- 
ditioning and  conditioned  complex  of  interacting  things; 
and  the  before-and-after  is  but  the  subjective  aspect  of  these 
metaphysical  conditions  and  interactions.  But  if  we  insist 
that  time  is  a  true  reality,  and  that  things  are  in  it,  we  are 
shut  up  to  the  admission  that  the  whole  series  of  things  co- 
exists in  the  present.  For  since  empty  time  can  do  nothing, 
either  to  hinder  or  help,  and  since  being  is  in  perpetual  flow, 
tho  beginning  and  the  end  must  coincide  in  time,  or  occur 
in  the  same  moment.  Every  effect  is  given  simultaneously 
with  its  conditions,  and  each  effect  in  turn  becomes  the 
cause  of  new  effects,  and  these  are  likewise  simultaneously 
given  ;  and  thus  the  whole  series  coexists.  The  before-and- 
after,  then,  would  exist  in  pure  duration  or  absolute  time, 
while  in  things,  where  we  seem  first  of  all  to  find  it,  there 
would  be  no  sequence  at  all. 

But  another  objection  awaits  us,  drawn  from  our  conscious 
experience.  It  will  be  alleged  with  great  positiveness  that, 
however  it  may  be  with  the  world-process,  we  know  that  the 
mental  process  involves  time.  We  know  that  we  have  lived 
through  the  past,  and  we  are  able  now  to  compare  it  with 
the  present ;  and  any  attempt  to  make  time  subjective  mere- 
ly must  be  shattered  on  this  fact.  "We  answer  that  the  ques- 
tion is  not  about  the  facts  of  consciousness,  but  about  their 
interpretation.  Without  doubt,  the  mind  as  phenomenon 
comes  under  the  law  of  time  and  sequence,  but  the  problem 
is  to  know  whether  this  sequence  exists  as  an  objective  fact 
for  the  pure  reason.  If  the  conclusion  of  the  previous  par- 
agraph be  allowed  for  change  in  general,  and  for  the  world- 
process,  it  must  also  be  allowed  for  the  mental  process. 
Even  our  acts  are  all  performed  in  relation  to  some  phase 
of  the  world-process;  and  if  this  process  have  no  distinction 
of  time,  then  our  acts  also  have  no  such  distinction,  except 
in  appearance.  They  exist  for  the  pure  reason  in  a  non- 


TIME.  231 

temporal  realm,  though  to  our  time-thought  they  put  on  the 
form  of  sequence  in  time.  We  cannot  speak  of  them  as 
separated  in  time  without  falling  back  into  the  impossible 
notion  of  an  independent  time. 

The  last  paragraph  is  well  calculated  to  exhaust  the  read- 
er's patience  entirely,  and,  as  we  do  not  wish  to  draw  his 
wrath  upon  ourselves,  we  propose  to  let  the  idealist  expound 
his  own  view  and  defend  himself  for  a  while.  Any  theory, 
the  reader  exclaims,  which  requires  us  to  believe  that  our 
acts  have  no  difference  of  date,  may  well  be  left  to  itself, 
for  it  cannot  but  perish  of  its  own  absurdity.  The  idealist 
replies  that  this  objection  rests  in  a  misunderstanding  of  the 
ideal  theory.  When  speaking  of  reality  as  non-spatial,  we 
were  met  by  the  question,  Are,  then,  things  not  separated 
in  space?  and,  if  not  separate,  are  they  all  coincident  in 
space  ?  The  reply  was  that,  for  reason,  things  are  neither 
together  nor  separate,  but  such,  in  their  metaphysical  inter- 
actions, that  they  appear  as  together  or  separate.  And  this 
appearance,  again,  we  also  declared  to  be  no  arbitrary  prod- 
uct of  our  minds,  without  any  relation  to  things,  but  only 
the  translation  into  the  forms  of  sense-intuition  of  meta- 
physical processes  unlike  those  forms.  Our  space-intuition, 
therefore,  is  not  without  its  reason  and  ground  in  the  nature 
of  things,  although  it  exists  as  such  intuition  only  in  the 
perceiving  mind.  The  same  holds  true  of  time.  Here, 
also,  the  question  arises,  If  events  are  not  successive  in  time, 
are  they  not  properly  coexistent,  so  that  the  past  is  not  past, 
and  the  future  is  not  future?  Nero  is  now  burning  Rome, 
and  the  unborn  babe  now  lives.  The  answer  is,  that  even 
coexistence,  as  thus  used,  is  a  temporal  idea,  and  that  events 
are  not  temporally  coexistent  any  more  than  they  are  tem- 
porally successive,  but  that  things  are  such  that  they  appear 
in  our  thought  as  coexistent  or  successive.  This  appearance, 
also,  is  not  arbitrarily  imposed  by  the  mind  on  its  objects ; 
it  is  the  subjective  aspect  of  change,  and,  as  such,  is  found- 
ed in  things,  and  cannot  be  changed  by  the  mind.  The  doc- 


232  METAPHYSICS. 

trine,  therefore,  does  not  imply  that  events  can  be  conceived 
as  temporally  coexistent,  any  more  than  the  ideality  of  space 
implies  that  things  shall  be  conceived  as  spatially  coincident. 
The  attempt  to  form  such  a  conception,  in  either  space  or 
time,  involves  a  complete  misunderstanding  of  the  doctrines, 
and,  of  course,  results  in  failure.  The  doctrines  in  question 
allow  that  space  and  time  are  absolute  necessities  of  thought 
in  certain  realms,  but  forbid  us  to  apply  them  beyond  those 
realms.  Such  is  the  idealist's  answer.  It  can  hardly  be 
called  satisfactory,  but  we  reserve  criticism. 

The  idealist's  claim,  then,  is  not  that  change  can  be  elim- 
inated from  the  universe,  or  from  the  mental  life,  but,  rath- 
er, that  change  itself,  when  viewed  by  the  pure  reason, 
shows  no  sign  of  before  and  after.  These  are  simply  the 
co-ordinates  of  the  conception  of  change,  but  the  fact  itself 
is  one,  and,  temporally,  indivisible.  The  idealist  further 
claims  that  the  doctrine  sometimes  held,  that  time  is  suc- 
cession, does  not  differ  essentially  from  his  own ;  for  suc- 
cession is  only  a  relation  of  events,  and  hence  is  incapable 
of  objective  existence.  Besides,  on  this  view,  succession  it- 
self is  not  in  time,  and  does  not  require  time.  To  say  that 
it  is  in  time  would  be  to  say  that  succession  is  in  succession, 
and  is  conditioned  by  succession.  But  this  doctrine,  which 
reduces  time  to  succession,  is  generally  accompanied  by  im- 
plicit assumption  of  an  empty  and  flowing  time,  in  which 
succession  succeeds.  If  we  strike  out  this  inconsistent  and 
impossible  notion,  the  doctrine  reduces  at  once  to  the  ideal 
view ;  for,  before  and  after  no  longer  refer  to  a  temporal 
distinction,  but  solely  to  relations  in  the  series  of  sequences. 
The  conditioning  is  before,  the  conditioned  is  after,  and  the 
before-and-after  i£  but  the  form  in  which  the  mind  repre- 
sents to  itself  this  relation  of  conditioning  and  conditioned. 
Difference  of  time  would  mean,  objectively,  nothing ;  and, 
subjectively,  it  would  mean  our  presence  with  different  parts 
of  the  series.  That  part  of  the  series  with  which  we  were 
not  in  immediate  contact  would  appear  either  in  the  past  or 


TIME.  233 

in  the  future,  and  there  would  be  no  other  test  of  past  and 
present  than  our  subjective  position.  Just  as  each  man 
makes  his  own  here  in  space,  so  each  conscious  member  of 
the  series  would  make  his  own  now  jn  time.  This  view  that 
time  is  succession  contains  nothing  to  forbid  the  thought 
that  the  entire  series  might  be  as  present  to  the  uncondi- 
tioned reality  as  what  we  call  the  present  is  to  us.  The 
past  is  past  for  us,  and  the  future  has  not  come  ;  but 
this  distinction  represents  no  fact  of  reality,  but  only  ex- 
presses our  peculiar  conditionedness.  The  doctrine  that 
time  is  but  succession  cannot  escape  these  conclusions  with- 
out taking  refuge  in  the  notion  of  an  independent  time, 
whose  ceaseless  flow  is  the  background  and  possibility  of 
succession.  But  this  view  is  utterly  untenable.  The  ide- 
alist further  adds,  that  the  succession  in  consciousness,  of 
which  the  realist  makes  so  much,  is  misinterpreted  through- 
out ;  for,  in  order  that  succession  should  be  known  as  such, 
the  knower  must  exist  apart  from  it.  If  there  were  noth- 
ing unchanging  and  timeless  in  the  mind,  the  knowledge  of 
succession  could  never  arise,  because  there  would  be  no  abid- 
ing standard  with  which  to  compare  it.  The  mind  must 
gather  up  its  experiences  in  a  single  timeless  act,  in  order 
to  become  aware  of  succession.  The  conception  of  sequence 
not  only  does  not  involve  a  sequence  of  conceptions,  but  it 
would  be  impossible,  if  it  did.  The  conceptions  which  are 
arranged  in  a  temporal  order  must  coexist  in  the  timeless  act 
which  grasps  and  arranges  them.  The  perception  of  time, 
then,  is  as  timeless  as  the  perception  of  space  is  non-spatial. 
The  things  which  are  perceived  in  time  must  yet  coexist  in 
thought,  in  order  to  be  so  perceived.  Hence  the  very  ne- 
cessity of  thinking  in  time  proves  that  the  pure  reason  can, 
and  must,  transcend  time.  The  idealist,  then,  concludes 
once  more  that  time  is  only  subjective. 

Is  there,  then,  no  difference  between  the  past  and  the  fut- 
ure ?  The  idealist  replies  that  there  is  the  greatest  differ- 
ence between  them,  but  that  it  is  not  a  temporal  one.  In 


234:  METAPHYSICS. 

speaking  of  the  relation  of  time  to  change,  we  pointed  out 
that  time  has  nothing  to  do  with  change,  and  that  the  se- 
ries A,  A,,  A2,  A3,  .  .  .  An,  by  which  we  represent  the 
world-process,  is  essentially  timeless.  We  have  simply  a 
relation  of  cause  and  effect,  without  any  admixture  of  time- 
elements  ;  and  the  notion  of  time  can  only  be  the  translation 
of  this  causal  connection  into  terms  of  sequence.  If,  now, 
we  suppose  some  perceptive  being  in  the  midst  of  this  proc- 
ess, say  at  Am,  who  could  discern  the  order  of  dependence 
among  the  members  of  the  series,  he  would  perceive  that 
each  member  is  conditioned  by  the  preceding  one,  and  con- 
ditions the  succeeding  one.  Am  is  conditioned  by  Am_j, 
and  conditions  Am+i.  The  attempt  to  represent  this  rela- 
tion in  thought  results  in  their  arrangement  in  a  temporal 
scheme,  in  which  the  cause  is  made  the  antecedent  and  the 
effect  the  consequent.  Antecedence  and  sequence  is  the 
universal  form  under  which  the  mind  represents  to  itself 
causation ;  but,  when  we  reflect  upon  the  matter,  we  find 
that  time  does  not  enter  into  the  reality,  but  only  into  the 
appearance.  To  return,  now,  to  our  being  at  Am,  his  own 
position  will  constitute  for  him  the  present.  He  will  per- 
ceive, too,  that  Am  conditions  all  the  higher  members  of  the 
series,  and  hence  he  will  locate  them  in  the  future,  and  he 
will  make  them  far  or  near  according  to  the  complexity  of 
their  conditionedness.  Am+,  will  be  conditioned  only  by 
Am,  while  Am+j  will  be  conditioned  by  both  Am  and  Am+, ; 
hence  it  will  be  put  further  on  in  the  series.  This  being 
will  further  perceive  that  all  the  lower  members  of  the  se- 
ries condition  Am,  or  his  present,  and  hence  he  will  put  them 
in  the  past,  and  at  greater  or  less  distances,  according  to 
their  relations  to  Am.  If,  in  the  series,  this  being  should 
discover  an  unconditioned  member,  the  regress  would  stop 
at  that  point,  and  that  member  would  appear  as  eternal. 
Thus  a  tendency  to  represent  dependence  by  temporal  ante- 
cedence and  sequence  would  produce  in  such  a  being  the 
perception  of  a  temporal  order,  even  in  a  perfectly  timeless 


TIME.  235 

system.  That  there  is  such  a  tendency  in  the  human  mind 
cannot  be  denied,  for  it  is  so  strong  that  we  are  always 
tempted  to  resolve  logical  and  dynamic  sequence  into  tem- 
poral sequence.  But  we  have  seen  that  the  dynamic  se- 
quence bears  no  marks  of  time,  and  hence  we  must  con- 
clude that  the  temporal  order  of  things  exists  only  in 
thought,  and  is  purely  a  product  of  the  observing  mind. 

The  idealist  has  expounded  his  view  at  great  length ;  but 
it  is  doubtful  if  he  himself  is  fully  satisfied.  When  he  be- 
gan his  exposition,  his  aim  was  to  show  that  change  does 
not  imply  time;  but  in  the  latter  part,  change  disappears 
and  dependence  takes  its  place.  Here  the  aim  is  to  show 
how,  in  a  timeless  system  of  conditioning  and  conditioned 
members,  the  appearance  of  time  might  arise  as  the  way 
in  which  we  represent  dependence.  But  this  is  really  a 
change  of  front;  and  it  must  be  declared  unsuccessful. 
The  question  must  still  turn  upon  the  nature  of  change  and 
its  relation  to  time.  There  is  one  fact  in  our  temporal  ex- 
perience which  is  fatal  to  the  attempt  to  make  dependence 
take  the  place  of  change.  It  is,  indeed,  conceivable  that  in 
a  changeless  system  the  relation  of  dependence  should  be 
represented  as  that  of  bef ore-and-af ter ;  so  that  for  every 
being  at  different  points  in  the  system,  all  the  lower  mem- 
bers should  seem  to  be  in  the  past,  and  all  the  higher 
members  should  seem  to  be  in  the  future.  But  in  such  a 
case,  every  being  would  have  a  fixed  present.  The  being 
at  Am  would  always  have  his  present  at  Am ;  and  past  and 
future  would  be  fixed  quantities  in  experience.  But  this 
is  not  the  case.  Am  does  not  remain  the  present,  but  forth- 
with gives  place  to  Am+1 ;  and  this  in  turn  is  displaced  by 
Am+2.  Thus  the  future  is  ever  becoming  present  and  van- 
ishing into  the  past.  But  this  fact  is  impossible  so  long 
as  there  is  no  change  in  reality.  Hence  change  can  never 
be  made  phenomenal  only,  but  is  a  fact  of  reality  itself. 

This  loads  us  to  consider  the  idealist's  attempt  to  elimi- 


236  METAPHYSICS. 

nate  time  from  change.  His  claim  that  there  is  no  empty 
time  between  changes,  no  matter  how  long  the  series,  is 
correct.  We  join  him  also  in  repudiating  time  as  an  inde- 
pendent reality,  and  we  have  pointed  out  that  if  time  were 
real,  all  events  must  be  coexistent.  But  there  is  one  point 
which  he  has  overlooked.  That  which  is  between  A  and 
An  is  not  time,  but  the  intervening  members  of  the  series, 
and  the  corresponding  changes.  And  because  there  is  no 
independent  time,  these  members  cannot  be  said  to  coexist. 
To  do  so,  is  to  bring  back  the  very  notion  of  an  absolute 
time  which  we  have  repudiated.  But  of  these  several  mem- 
bers, the  existence  of  any  one  excludes  the  existence  of  all 
the  rest.  The  members  of  a  space-series  can  coexist,  but 
the  members  of  a  time-series  are  mutually  exclusive.  This 
is  the  great  difference  between  the  two  series;  and  this 
mutual  exclusion  makes  it  impossible  ever  to  regard  the 
members  of  a  time -series  as  coexistent.  Whenever  we 
think  it  possible,  we  are  really  mistaking  a  space-series  for 
a  time-series ;  and  owing  to  the  fact  that  we  always  intnite 
time  under  space-forms,  this  mistake  is  very  easy.  Return- 
ing now  to  the  idealist's  criticism,  we  find  him  misled  partly 
by  the  attempt  to  find  all  things  coexisting  in  the  same  mo- 
ment of  absolute  time,  and  partly  by  the  confusion  of  space- 
metaphors  with  temporal  reality.  He  claimed  that  as  time 
is  no  independent  reality,  we  cannot  say  that  succession 
takes  place  in  time.  Succession  is  not  in  time,  and  differ- 
ence of  time  means  only  difference  of  position  in  the  series. 
Hence  he  urged  tliat  there  might  be  some  being  in  constant 
contact  with  every  member  of  the  series,  and  for  whom  the 
entire  series  might  coexist.  In  this  remark  the  idealist 
betrays  the  misleading  influence  of  the  space-metaphor  by 
which  he  represents  the  time-series  to  his  thought ;  and  he 
further  overlooks  entirely  the  peculiarity  of  the  time-series 
— namely,  that  its  members  exclude  one  another.  It  is  this 
fact  also  which  excludes  the  paradoxical  claim  that  events 
are^either  coexistent  or  not  coexistent.  If  time  were  sim- 


TIME.  237 

ply  a  relation  of  dependence,  then  there  would  be  no  com- 
mon time  in  which  things  coexist ;  but  it  is  in  addition  a 
series  of  which  one  member  exists  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
the  rest.  Hence  the  other  members  do  not  exist  in  a  non- 
temporal  realm,  but  do  not  exist  at  all.  For  the  rest,  the 
idealist's  exposition  is  correct.  The  series  A,  Ar  A2,  A3, 
.  .  .  An,  is  not  in  time ;  and  between  A  and  An  there  is  no 
time.  Neither  is  A  earlier  than  An  in  any  absolute  time ; 
for  that  which  makes  a  thing  earlier  or  later  is  its  position 
in  the  series.  But  A  and  An,  though  not  separate  in  any 
absolute  time,  are  nevertheless  not  coexistent ;  for  their  re- 
lations are  such  that  the  existence  of  either  excludes  that 
of  the  other.  The  objective  fact  is  being  passing  from 
state  to  state ;  and  these  states  are  mutually  exclusive. 
Change  does  not,  indeed,  require  time;  but  it  results  in  a 
new  state  which  excludes,  and  hence  succeeds,  its  predeces- 
sor. This  fact  of  change  is  basal.  It  is  not  in  time,  and 
it  does  not  require  time;  but  it  founds  time;  and  time  is 
but  the  form  of  change.  In  the  common  thought  time  ex- 
ists as  a  precondition  of  change ;  in  our  view  change  is  first, 
and  time  is  but  its  form.  It  has  no  other  reality. 

The  view  thus  reached  is  a  compromise  between  the  ideal 
and  the  current  view.  Absolute  time,  or  time  as  an  inde- 
pendent reality,  is  purely  a  product  of  our  thinking.  In 
this  sense,  then,  the  world  is  not  in  time.  But  change  is 
real,  and  change  cannot  be  conceived  without  succession. 
In  this  sense,  the  world-process  is  in  time.  But  distinctions 
of  time  do  not  depend  on  any  flow  of  absolute  time,  but 
on  the  flow  of  reality,  and  on  the  position  of  things  in  this 
flow.  To  say  that  there  is  time  between  distant  members 
of  the  series,  means  only  that  reality  changes  in  passing 
from  one  state  to  another;  and  the  amount  of  time  is  not 
simply  measured  by  the  amount  of  change,  but  is  nothing 
but  the  amount  of  change.  The  rate  of  change  is  the  rate 
of  time ;  and  the  cessation  of  change  would  be  the  cessa- 
tion of  time.  "With  the  disappearance  of  absolute  time,  the 


238  METAPHYSICS. 

present  acquires  a  new  meaning.  It  is  no  longer  the  sim- 
ple plane  of  division  between  past  and  future,  but  it  is  the 
real  as  distinct  from  what  has  been  real,  or  what  will  be 
real.  Present  thoughts  are  those  we  actually  have.  Pres- 
ent states  are  not  states  which  exist  in  a  present  time,  for 
there  is  no  time ;  but  they  are  those  states  in  which  reality 
is  actually  expressed.  A  given  state  is  present  as  long  as 
it  lasts ;  and  a  given  thing  is  present  as  long  as  it  endures. 
This  use  of  the  word  is  quite  in  harmony  with  usage.  We 
speak  of  the  present  world,  meaning  the  actual  system.  We 
speak  also  of  the  present  life,  and  mean  always  the  one  that 
is  actual  and  real.  But  reality  is  not  in  the  present,  but  by 
its  active  existence  it  constitutes  the  present.  To  be  real 
in  being  and  to  be  present  in  time  are  phrases  of  identical 
meaning. 

The  rejection  of  absolute  time,  and  the  identification  of 
time  with  change,  lead  to  the  question  as  to  the  unity  of 
time.  Might  not  change  in  different  beings  have  a  differ- 
ent rate,  so  that  each  being  would  have  his  own  time  ?  In 
reply  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  unity  of  both  space  and 
time  is  primarily  individual.  The  individual  intuition  of 
space  will  always  be  a  unit ;  but  the  unity  and  the  fact  of 
a  common  space  depend  upon  the  existence  of  a  common 
object.  In  like  manner,  time  will  be  a  unity  for  each  con- 
sciousness; but  the  unity  and  the  fact  of  a  common  time 
depend  on  the  existence  of  a  common  process.  Primarily 
the  rate  of  time,  also,  is  individual.  A  world  of  thinking 
beings  only  would  have  no  common  time -measure;  and 
each  one  would  estimate  time  by  the  changes  in  his  own 
consciousness.  Psychologic  time,  in  distinction  from  objec- 
tive time,  would  alone  exist.  The  impossibility  of  agree- 
ment in  such  a  case  is  shown  by  the  different  estimates  we 
form  of  time  according  to  our  circumstances.  But  the  co- 
existence of  thinking  beings  with  an  independent  reality, 
which  is  also  in  incessant  change,  enables  them  to  compare 
their  individual  times  with  a  common  time-piece ;  and  thus 


TIME.  239 

the  world-process  furnishes  to  our  minds  a  regulator  where- 
by to  adjust  our  time-estimates.  Without  this  process,  the 
unity  of  time  would  disappear  into  a  multitude  of  individ- 
ual times  as  unrelated  as  the  times  and  spaces  of  one  dream 
are  to  those  of  another.  The  question  whether  the  world- 
process  itself  is  constant,  admits  of  no  solution.  To  give  it 
meaning,  we  must  either  assume  an  absolute  time  whose 
moments  flow  at  a  changeless  rate,  or  we  must  compare  the 
world-process  with  another,  assumed  to  be  constant.  But 
we  should  gain  nothing  in  either  case.  If  the  flow  of  ab- 
solute time  meant  anything,  the  constancy  of  its  rate  would 
be  an  assumption.  The  second  world-process  with  which 
we  compare  the  first  is  a  figment  of  abstraction.  The  act- 
ual world-process  is  the  basal  fact ;  and  by  its  constant  pro- 
cession, it  founds  time  and  time-measures. 

And  here  we  must  refer  to  a  point  dwelt  upon  in  speak- 
ing of  the  relation  of  the  infinite  to  law  and  truth.  We 
there  pointed  out  that  reality  in  action  is  the  basal  fact; 
and  that  by  abstraction  from  the  direction  of  this  action  we 
come  to  the  notion  of  laws  of  mind  and  of  nature.  The 
mind  is  not  something  which  obeys  laws  of  thought ;  but 
it  exists  as  a  thinking  being,  and  thus  founds  laws  of 
thought.  These  laws  express  nothing  but  the  modes  of 
mental  action,  and  are  simply  abstractions  from  these  modes. 
In  like  manner,  natural  laws  express  only  the  way  in  which 
objective  reality  acts.  But  in  both  of  these  cases,  after 
having  formed  the  conception  of  law,  we  next  carry  the 
law  behind  the  thing,  and  conceive  it  as  a  pre-existent  neces- 
sity to  which  reality  must  submit.  Then  we  speak  of  the 
reign  of  law,  and  fail  to  see  that  we  are  really  trying  to 
subject  reality  to  its  own  consequences.  The  same  error 
appears  in  our  notion  of  time.  The  objective  fact  is  reality 
in  action,  and  by  its  action  it  founds  an  order  of  change 
and  becoming.  But  by  abstraction  from  this  order,  we  get 
the  empty  form  of  change,  and  this  we  next  erect  into  a 
pre-existent  necessity  which  conditions  all  being.  But  here 


240  METAPHYSICS. 

again  we  mistake  an  abstraction  for  a  fact,  and  subject  real- 
ity to  its  own  consequences.  That  principle  which  implies 
that  the  activity  of  being  shall  be  successive  is  not  to  be 
found  outside  of  being  in  any  pre-existent  realm  of  fathom- 
less necessity,  but  must  be  found  in  being  itself.  In  this 
sense,  time,  like  space,  is  a  principle  of  being ;  and  it  condi- 
tions being  not  as  an  external  fact,  but  as  an  inner  principle. 
It  only  remains  to  inquire  into  the  relation  of  time  to  the 
infinite.  The  results  reached  in  the  discussion  compel  the 
following  conclusion.  A  being  which  is  in  full  possession 
of  itself,  so  that  it  does  not  come  to  itself  successively,  would 
not  be  in  time.  Such  a  being  can  be  conceived  as  having  a 
changeless  knowledge  and  a  changeless  life.  As  such,  it 
would  be  without  memory  and  without  expectation,  but 
would  be  in  the  absolute  enjoyment  of  itself.  For  such  a 
being  the  present  alone  would  exist,  and  its  now  would  be 
eternal.  For  those  who  conceive  the  infinite  as  such  a  be- 
ing, the  infinite  must  have  a  strictly  non-temporal  existence. 
All  change  in  the  infinite,  as  thus  conceived,  would  not  be 
a  succession  of  different  states,  but  the  ceaseless  conserva- 
tion of  the  same  state.  To  express  it  by  a  series,  the  order 
would  not  be  A,  A,,  A2,  etc.,  but  simply  A,  A,  A,  A,  etc. ; 
and  this  would  reduce  to  A.  There  would  be  neither  past 
nor  future,  but  an  abiding  present.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
may  regard  the  infinite  as  moving  through  a  series,  A,  Ar 
A2,  A3,  etc.,  and  as  so  conditioned  in  itself  that  it  can  real- 
ize these  states  only  successively.  In  that  case,  the  infinite 
would  be  in  time  as  much  as  anything  is  in  time ;  that  is, 
its  development  would  be  successive.  But  this  is  the  con- 
ception of  a  blind  evolution,  and  does  not  exist  for  us. 
From  the  theistic  standpoint,  the  infinite  must  be  viewed 
as  possessing  an  eternal  now,  so  far  as  itself  is  concerned. 
God,  then,  is  not  to  be  viewed  as  conditioned  by  time  with 
regard  to  his  own  self-consciousness  and  self-possession.  In 
discussing  change,  we  saw  that  being,  from  a  purely  onto- 
logical  standpoint,  is  process,  and  that  a  fixed  point  in  being 


TIME.  241 

cannot  be  found  in  some  rigid  core  of  substance,  but  only 
in  personality.  The  same  conclusion  emerges  here.  God  is 
not  independent  of  time  in  his  own  existence  as  the  absolute 
being,  but  only  as  the  absolute  person.  It  is  only  in  the 
self-centred  and  self-equivalent  personality  that  we  transcend 
the  conditions  and  sphere  of  time. 

But  God  is  not  merely  the  absolute  person,  without  a  past 
and  a  future ;  he  is,  also,  the  founder  and  conductor  of  the 
world-process.  This  fact  brings  God  into  a  new  relation  to 
time.  This  process  is  a  developing  and  changing  one,  and 
hence  is  in  time.  Hence,  also,  the  activity  of  God  in  this 
process  is  essentially  a  temporal  one,  and  God  himself  is  in 
time,  so  far  as  this  process  is  concerned.  But  here,  too, 
there  is  a  certain  timeless  element.  As  knowing  all  the 
possibilities  of  the  process,  the  divine  knowledge  of  the  sys- 
tem may  be  viewed  as  without  succession,  and  hence  as  non- 
temporal.  But,  as  the  chief  agent  in  the  process,  and  as  inces- 
santly adjusting  his  activity  to  the  several  stages  of  the  proc- 
ess, both  his  activity  and  his  knowledge  of  the  advancing 
reality  must  be  in  time.  A  changeless  knowledge  of  an 
ideal  is  possible,  but  a  changeless  knowledge  of  a  changing 
thing  is  a  contradiction.  A  knowledge  of  reality,  at  any 
moment,  must  embrace  reality  as  it  is;  and  if,  in  the  next 
moment,  reality  has  changed,  the  knowledge  must  change 
to  correspond.  The  infinite,  then,  must  be  in  time,  so  far 
as  the  world-process  is  concerned,  as  this  involves  sequence 
in  both  action  and  knowledge.  But  the  discussion  of  this 
subject  must  be  left  to  theistic  philosophy. 
16 


242  METAPHYSICS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

MOTION. 

THE  phenomenality  of  space  implies  the  phenomenality 
of  motion.  Motion  has  been  identified  by  some  speculators 
with  change  in  general,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  not  phenome- 
nal. This  view  of  motion  appears  in  the  Eleatic  specula- 
tions, and,  in  modern  times,  Trendelcnburg  has  presented 
motion  as  the  common  element  of  the  outer  and  the  inner 
world.  But  this  is  not  the  common  meaning  of  the  word. 
Motion  is,  indeed,  a  form  of  change,  but  all  change  is  not 
motion.  "\Ve  may,  also,  speak  of  a  movement  in  thought ; 
but  the  expression  is  purely  figurative.  Motion,  in  its  com- 
mon use,  means  only  change  of  place,  or  the  successive  oc- 
cupation of  different  spatial  positions.  As  thus  used,  it  im- 
plies the  reality  of  space,  and  is  limited  to  space  as  its  field 
and  the  ground  of  its  possibility.  In  accordance  with  our 
general  plan,  we  start  with  this  popular  view,  and  hold  our 
own  theory  in  reserve. 

Motion  itself  is  indefinable,  except  in  terms  of  itself. 
Like  being,  change,  and  action,  it  must  be  accepted  as  an 
idea  which  cannot  be  constructed  out  of  anything  else.  If 
we  define  motion  as  a  change  of  place,  or  as  a  passage  from 
one  point  of  space  to  another,  we  but  define  the  same  by 
the  same.  The  change  of  place,  or  the  passage  from  point 
to  point,  is  unintelligible  without  the  intuition  of  motion 
itself.  To  one  who  has  the  intuition,  such  definitions  serve 
to  unfold  its  implications,  but  to  one  without  the  intuition 
they  are  as  useless  as  a  definition  of  sight  is  to  the  blind. 


MOTION.  243 

Zeno's  claim  that  motion  implies  contradiction  has  been 
sufficiently  noticed  in  speaking  of  change.  In  modern  times, 
a  series  of  objections  have  been  based  on  the  antithesis  of 
absolute  and  relative  motion.  Absolute  motion  is  declared 
impossible,  and  the  universe,  as  a  whole,  is  said  to  rest.  Kest 
and  motion,  then,  are  alike  relative  and  real  only  as  relative. 
These  objections  may  have  puzzled  many,  but  have  proba- 
bly convinced  none.  They  simply  leave  the  mind  in  that 
most  uncomfortable  position  of  being  sure  that  there  is  a 
fallacy  without  being  able  to  point  it  out.  But,  in  this  case, 
it  is  not  difficult  to  detect  both  the  error  of  statement  and 
the  fallacy  of  argument.  The  former  is  discovered  by  sim- 
ple definition.  Absolute  rest  can  only  be  defined  as  contin- 
uous existence  in  the  same  position  in  absolute  space.  Ab- 
solute motion,  therefore,  would  be  the  successive  occupation 
of  different  positions  in  absolute  space.  If,  now,  there  is  no 
absolute  motion,  then  all  things  are  absolutely  at  rest,  or  re- 
main in  the  same  points  in  absolute  space.  In  that  case, 
relative  motion,  which  is  declared  to  be  real,  becomes  a 
mere  delusion,  with  no  ground  whatever.  If,  then,  we  hold 
that  motion  of  any  kind  is  more  than  a  phenomenon,  we 
must  affirm  the  reality  of  absolute  motion,  and  view  relative 
motion  only  as  the  way  in  which  sundry  absolute  motions 
appear  from  our  standpoint. 

The  fallacy  of  the  argument  against  absolute  motion  is  no 
less  easily  detected.  It  consists  in  assuming  that  the  mental 
co-ordinates  by  which  thought  grasps  the  fact  are  necessary 
to  the  fact  itself.  We  are  told,  for  example,  that  absolute 
motion  is  indistinguishable  from  absolute  rest,  because  mo- 
tion implies  fixed  points  of  reference,  and  in  absolute  space 
there  are  no  such  points.  All  the  points  of  space  are  alike ; 
there  is  no  here  and  no  there,  for  these  terms  are  purely  rel- 
ative to  the  spectator.  But  motion  is  a  passage  from  here 
to  there,  and  hence  is  always  relative  to  the  spectator,  and 
therefore  impossible  in  pure  space.  To  all  this  the  reply  is 
that  motion  is,  indeed,  grasped  and  measured  in  thought 


244  METAPHYSICS. 

only  by  setting  up  some  point  or  axes  of  reference;  but 
these  mental  co-ordinates  are  nothing  to  the  motion  itself ; 
least  of  all  do  they  make  the  motion.  We  cannot  define 
or  represent  a  motion  to  ourselves,  without  assuming  some 
standpoint  in  relation  to  which  the  motion  is  to  be  meas- 
ured ;  but  the  motion  itself  is  under  no  obligation  to  be  rep- 
resented, and  moves  on  according  to  its  own  laws,  whether 
we  think  of  it  or  not.  It  certainly  never  occurs  to  the  as- 
tronomer to  fancy  that  the  celestial  equator  and  meridian, 
to  which  he  refers  the  stellar  motions,  make  the  motions. 
He  recognizes  that  these  planes  of  reference  are  but  the 
makeshifts  of  our  minds  in  order  to  grasp  the  fact.  If, 
then,  absolute  space  were  real,  there  need  not  be  the  least 
difficulty  in  admitting  absolute  motion.  The  fact  that  ev- 
ery point  in  such  space  is  distinct  from  every  other  point 
would  suffice  for  its  affirmation.  The  entire  system  might 
be  viewed  as  journeying  through  infinite  space,  or  as  revolv- 
ing in  it.  Such  a  conception  of  the  entire  system,  of  course, 
could  never  be  tested,  for  no  facts  whatever  could  prove  or 
disprove  it.  Nothing  short  of  a  revelation  would  suffice  for 
a  decision.  Applied  to  our  solar  system,  however,  it  would 
represent  the  fact.  Its  centre  of  gravity  is  in  motion,  and 
the  system,  as  a  whole,  revolves.  In  addition,  the  planets 
themselves  are  revolving  on  their  own  axes  in  absolute  space. 
To  conceive  such  motions,  we  need  points  of  reference ;  but 
the  existence  of  the  motions,  if  space  be  real,  is  quite  inde- 
pendent of  our  thought  and  its  scaffolding.  Possibly  it  may 
be  urged  that  motion  is,  at  least,  relative  to  space  itself,  and 
that  when  space  itself  is  reckoned  as  a  part  of  the  system, 
motion  can  only  be  relative.  This  ma}7'  be  admitted.  Space 
does  not  move,  and  motion  is  in  space.  But  this  motion 
would  change  the  definition,  and  cancel  the  problem  alto- 
gether, in  any  intelligible  sense. 

Concerning  the  relation  of  motion  to  reality,  the  history 
of  speculation  shows  a  complete  change  of  view.  The  an- 
cients, without  exception,  held  that  the  natural  state  of 


MOTION.  245 

things  is  rest.  Things  are  put  in  motion  only  by  external 
agency,  and,  resigned  to  themselves,  come  quickly  to  rest 
again.  Motion  was  regarded  as  a  "  violent  state"  of  things, 
and  the  moving  thing  was  supposed  to  have  an  inner  strug- 
gle to  escape  from  it.  The  source  of  this  belief  is  evident. 
In  our  sense-experience,  we  have  abundant  illustrations  of 
the  cessation  of  motion  and  of  the  difficulty  of  initiating  it. 
Besides,  we  find  in  ourselves  a  weariness,  resulting  from 
continued  effort,  which  compels  us  to  seek  repose ;  and  this, 
by  a  kind  of  mechanical  anthropomorphism,  is  easily  trans- 
ferred to  things. 

This  view  of  earlier  speculators  has  given  rise  in  later 
times  to  the  opposite  idea,  that  motion  is  the  natural  state 
of  things.  The  conception  of  matter  as  having  no  principle 
of  movement  in  itself,  and  as  tending  to  rest,  led  necessarily 
to  the  doctrine  of  at  least  a  prime  mover  in  the  universe, 
who  should  also  be  immaterial.  But  such  a  view  could  hard- 
ly help  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  theistically-inclined  spec- 
ulators, and  could  not  fail,  therefore,  to  be  obnoxious  to  such 
as  did  not  share  such  tendencies.  These  side-issues  have 
not  been  without  their  effect  in  mechanical  speculations.  A 
more  respectable  ground  of  the  view  is  the  desire  to  escape 
admitting  any  moving  forces  in  matter.  With  this  aim, 
various  theories  of  molecular  vortices  have  been  invented, 
in  which  atoms  originally  endowed  with  motion  are  made 
to  produce  all  material  phenomena  by  simple  variations  of 
the  rate  and  direction  of  motion.  But,  whatever  the  source 
of  the  doctrine,  it  is  hard  to  give  to  natural  any  clear  meaning 
in  this  connection,  and,  in  its  obvious  sense,  the  doctrine  is 
false.  If  motion  were  an  essential  and  inalienable  endow- 
ment of  every  element,  and  not  a  variable  product  of  mov- 
ing forces,  it  might  be  called  natural  to  matter.  In  such  a 
case,  any  element  left  to  itself  would  move  with  a  fixed  ve- 
locity, as  a  result  of  its  own  nature.  But  this  view  is  unten- 
able, and  leads  to  results  directly  contradicted  by  the  facts. 
It  may  well  be  that  motion  is  a  universal  fact,  as  an  effect 


246  METAPHYSICS. 

of  the  moving  forces  of  the  elements ;  but  this  is  far  from 
making  it  an  inherent  and  essential  attribute  of  matter. 
In  fact,  motion  is  neither  natural  nor  unnatural,  but  a  con- 
tfition  in  which  matter  may  or  may  not  be;  and  in  this 
sense  matter  may  be  said  to  be  indifferent  to  motion.  If 
in  motion,  it  remains  in  motion ;  and  if  at  rest,  it  remains 
at  rest.  This  is  the  only  view  which  does  not  conflict  with 
the  law  of  inertia — a  law  which,  whether  an  apriori  truth  or 
not,  is  still  too  well  attested  by  consequences  to  be  ques- 
tioned as  to  its  validity.  The  motions  of  the  elements 
are  the  products  of  their  interaction,  and  the  condition  of 
any  element,  whether  in  motion  or  at  rest,  has  its  external 
ground. 

But  this  indifference  of  matter  to  motion  must  not  be 
confounded  with  the  claim  that  matter  is  strictly  the  same, 
whether  at  rest  or  in  motion.  This  view  rests  partly  upon 
the  abstractions  of  mechanics,  in  which  matter  appears  as 
the  rigid  and  indifferent  subject  of  motion,  and  partly  on 
the  fact  that  matter  can  begin  and  cease  to  move  without 
any  change  of  its  prominent  qualities.  Hence  un reflective 
thought,  which  thinks  mainly  under  the  law  of  identity, 
holds  that  matter  in  motion  is  the  same  as  matter  in  rest. 
Now,  whatever  view  we  may  take  of  motion,  this  view  is 
false.  The  motion  of  a  thing  is  simply  its  successive  ap- 
pearance at  the  successive  points  of  its  course.  But  this 
succession  must  have  some  ground.  A  moving  body,  at  a 
given  point  of  its  path,  differs  from  the  same  body  at  rest 
in  the  same  point ;  otherwise,  the  effect  would  be  the  same. 
It  is.  idle  to  say  that  the  difference  is  that  one  moves  and 
the  other  rests,  for  the  movement  of  the  first  is  but  its  pas- 
sage from  the  point  in  which  it  is  at  any  instant  to  the  con- 
tiguous one,  and  there  is  no  ground  for  this  passage,  unless 
the  moving  body  have  a  different  internal  state  from  that 
of  the  resting  one.  ISTo  more  does  it  avail  to  say  that  the 
ground  of  the  motion  is  the  attraction  of  other  bodies,  for 
this  attraction  acts  by  no  external  grip  or  drawing,  but  by 


MOTION.  247 

producing  a  new  state  in  the  thing,  and  this  state  is  the  im- 
mediate ground  of  the  new  manifestation.  Motion,  there- 
fore, is  but  the  spatial  manifestation  of  a  peculiar  metaphys- 
ical state  in  the  moving  thing  itself,  and  this  state  is  what 
distinguishes  the  moving  from  the  resting  thing.-  Without 
this  admission,  we  cannot  escape  Zeno's  conclusion  that  mo- 
tion is  impossible ;  for,  at  any  point  of  time,  the  moving 
body  is  at  a  given  point  in  space,  and  if  at  that  time  and  point; 
it  is  metaphysically  the  same  as  if  at  rest  in  the  same  point, 
then  the  moving  body  rests,  and  can  never  move.  Both 
the  law  of  inertia  and  that  of  causation  would  forbid  its 
motion.  The  latter  would  forbid  it  for  the  lack  of  any 
ground  for  the  motion,  and  the  former  would  forbid  it  be- 
cause the  body,  being  at  rest  in  a  point,  must  continue  so. 
"We  must,  then,  admit  that,  even  in  the  indivisible  point  of 
time  in  which  there  can  be  no  spatial  manifestation,  the 
moving  body  differs  from  the  resting  one  by  an  internal 
state,  which  is  the  true  ground  of  the  motion.  To  this 
state  we  give  the  name  of  velocity.  In  itself,  velocity  is 
not  motion  any  more  than  a  force  is  a  line.  Motion  is  a 
measure  of  velocity,  just  as  force  may  be  represented  by  a 
line,  but  both  alike  are  forever  different  from  either  mo- 
tions or  lines.  If  velocity  itself  were  motion  instead  of  its 
ground,  then,  in  a  point  of  time,  a  moving  body  could  have 
no  velocity,  and  hence  no  ground  for  passing  from  the  point 
of  space  in  which  it  might  be.  But,  at  any  instant,  a  mov- 
ing body  has  velocity  which  is  not  made,  but  measured,  by 
the  space  passed  over  in  the  unit  of  time.  If  the  velocity 
be  variable,  then  it  is  measured  by  the  space  passed  over  in. 
the  unit  of  time,  supposing  the  velocity  to  become  fixed  at 
the  instant  of  measurement.  This  fact  implies  that  velocity 
itself  is  quite  different  from  its  measure.  It  is  that  inner 
state  of  a  thing  of  greater  or  less  intensity  which  impels  it 
incessantly  to  change  its  place.  "While,  then,  we  can  repre- 
sent it  as  the  quotient  of  the  space  and  time,  or  as  the  first 
differential  coefficient  of  the  space  and  time,  we  must  not 


248  METAPHYSICS. 

identify  it  with  either.  Such  a  blunder  would  be  like  iden- 
tifying the  lines  and  differential  coefficients  which  represent 
force  with  force  itself. 

There  is  a  strong  tendency  in  the  human  mind  to  mistake 
abstract  nouns  for  things.  Accordingly  heat,  electricity,  af- 
finity, etc.,  are  often  spoken  of  as  real  agents.  This  fact, 
together  with  the  traditional  conceptions  of  motion  in  spec- 
ulative quarters,  has  led  to  a  very  general  hypostasis  of  mo- 
tion. In  the  Cartesian  physics  motion  was  viewed  as  con- 
tributed from  without  by  an  original  act  of  God,  and  its 
quantity  was  conceived  as  fixed.  Other  speculators,  who 
were  averse  to  appealing  to  God,  announced  that  motion  is 
as  eternal  and  as  indestructible  as  matter.  Some  difficulty 
was  found  in  the  fact  that  this  indestructible  motion  is  not 
an  essential  attribute  of  any  particular  thing,  but  is  divided 
up  variously  among  different  things,  and  is  forever  changing 
its  form  and  place.  Still  it  was  held  that  there  is  a  fixed 
amount  of  motion  in  the  system  which  may  have  been  orig- 
inally communicated  from  without,  and  which  may  be  eter- 
nal. This  view  was  further  mixed  up  with  the  fancy  that 
all  communication  of  motion  is  only  by  impact,  and  it  even 
passed  into  an  axiom  that  only  the  moving  can  cause  motion. 
These  notions  are  not  without  traces,  even  in  current  specu- 
lation. Mr.  Spencer  has  made  what  he  calls  the  continuity 
of  motion,  whereby  he  means  the  indestructibility  of  motion, 
one  of  the  foundation-stones  of  his  philosophy.  But  these 
notions  are  not  in  accordance  with  current  physical  concep- 
tions. The  necessity  of  assuming  moving  forces  in  the  ele- 
ments has  taken  all  credit  from  the  claim  that  only  the 
moving  can  cause  motion ;  while  the  observation  of  any  case 
of  vibratory  motion,  as  of  a  pendulum,  suffices  to  overthrow 
its  pretended  foundation  in  experience.  Besides,  as  motion 
is  only  a  condition  of  a  thing,  it  can  never  be  transferred, 
but  only  propagated.  Ko  thing  can  transfer  its  own  proper 
motion ;  it  can  only  produce  an  equivalent  motion  in  an- 
other. The  antecedent  motion  is  destroyed,  in  the  sense  in 


MOTION.  249 

which  any  changing  quality  is  destroyed;  and  the  resultant 
motion  is  created,  in  the  sense  in  which  any  new  state  is 
created.  That  is,  the  beginning  and  cessation  of  motion  in- 
volve creation  and  annihilation  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
change  in  general  involves  them.  Some  speculators  have 
declared  it  unthinkable,  and,  indeed,  it  is  unconstruable  in  its 
inner  genesis;  but  it  is  positively  mortifying  to  find  argu- 
ments offered  for  the  indestructibility  of  motion  which,  if 
they  had  any  force,  would  shut  us  up  to  the  dead  rest  of  the 
Eleatics.  Finally,  the  quantity  of  motion  in  the  system  is 
not  constant.  This  is  a  dogma  which  has  long  been  super- 
annuated in  physics.  Those  who  affirm  it  fancy  that  they 
have  the  support  of  physics;  but  the  conservation  of  energy, 
which  they  apparently  have  in  mind,  is  a  totally  different 
doctrine. 

The  law  of  continuity  is  one  which  has  had  great  promi- 
nence in  the  history  of  speculation.  This  law  was  first 
formulated  by  Leibnitz,  and  was  at  first  confined  to  motion 
only.  Afterwards  it  was  extended  to  every  department  of 
thought  and  experience.  The  evolutionists  in  particular 
have  made  it  one  of  their  first  principles,  and  the  most  fun- 
damental law  of  progress.  In  this  wide  sense  the  law  has 
no  fixed,  and  scarcely  any  assignable,  meaning.  As  used  by 
some  speculators,  it  seems  to  exclude  all  antitheses  whatever ; 
and  Spencer's  attempt  to  deduce  all  heterogeneity  from  the 
homogeneous  may  be  viewed  as  an  attempt  to  give  the  law 
this  universal  significance.  The  Leibnitzians,  also,  were  fond 
of  making  the  increments  of  variation  infinitesimal  in  all  di- 
rections, so  that  all  widely  separated  groups  are  joined  by 
missing  links  or  are  produced  by  infinitesimal  variations. 
On  the  basis  of  this  conception,  Leibnitz  ventured  to  affirm 
something  like  the  development  of  species,  and  the  indis- 
tinguishability  of  all  realms  at  their  points  of  junction.  He 
also  ruled  out  all  absolute  oppositions  like  rest  and  motion, 
and  all  incommensurable  realities  as  space  and  time.  On 
the  same  ground  he  denied  all  beginning  in  time  and  all 


250  METAPHYSICS. 

bounds  in  space.  Rest  is  insensible  motion.  Space  and  time 
are  ideas ;  and  creation  means  only  dependence.  This  doc- 
trine of  continuity  in  general  has  had  great  favor  with  flighty 
and  impatient  speculators  from  its  first  announcement,  be- 
cause it  is  at  once  so  effective  and  so  cheap.  If  missing 
links  are  sought  for  and  fail  to  be  found,  it  is  easy  to  say 
that  the  law  of  continuity  proves  that  they  must  have  exist- 
ed even  if  they  cannot  be  found.  The  distinction  between 
the  organic  and  the  inorganic  is  easily  removed  by  the  same 
method.  In  psychology,  also,  the  empiricist  has  no  difficulty 
in  showing  that  sensation  is  the  only  fact,  because  to  allow 
anything  different  would  be  to  break  continuity.  But  while 
one  speculator  deduces  life  from  the  lifeless  by  the  principle 
of  continuity,  another  denies  the  possibility  on  the  same 
ground.  Continuity,  he  urges,  demands  that  life  shall  come 
from  life,  and  forbids  any  other  view.  Materialism  likewise 
is  affirmed  and  denied  in  the  name  of  continuity.  Unfortu- 
nately these  speculators  have  never  bethought  themselves  to 
give  a  general  demonstration  of  this  law,  nor  even  to  define 
the  various  senses  in  which  it  is  used.  Sometimes  it  is  sim- 
ply a  denial  of  creation  and  the  supernatural.  Sometimes 
it  means  that  nature  never  makes  a  leap.  Sometimes  it 
means  that  all  phenomena  are  but  phases  of  a  common  proc- 
ess, and  that  from  any  fact  whatever  in  the  system  we  can 
pass  to  any  other,  however  different,  by  simple  modifications 
of  this  process.  In  short,  it  means  anything  which  happens 
to  be  desirable.  But,  except  with  the  most  flighty,  the  law 
is  not  thus  vague  and  general.  It  does  not  affirm  a  continu- 
ity between  all  forms  of  reality,  as  if  all  the  antitheses  of  the 
system  could  be  reduced  to  a  common  measure  and  a  com- 
mon process.  It  rather  affirms  only  a  continuity  between 
the  several  members  of  a  series.  If,  for  example,  there  be 
a  progress  in  the  series  A,  Av  A2,  .  .  .  AD,  then  the  progress 
from  A  to  An  proceeds  through  Ar  A2,  etc.  It  is  the  con- 
tinuity of  space,  or  of  time,  or  of  a  given  being,  and  not  an 
identification  of  everything  with  everything  else. 


MOTION.  251 

We  return  now  to  the  continuity  of  motion.  This  has 
been  taken  to  mean  the  indestructibility  of  motion,  and  in 
this  sense  the  doctrine  is  false.  But,  apart  from  this  misun- 
derstanding, the  doctrine  is  ambiguous,  as  it  may  be  referred 
to  space  or  velocity.  A  very  excellent  work  on  mechanics 
contains  the  following  definition  :  "  Motion  is  essentially 
continuous ;  that  is,  a  body  cannot  pass  from  one  position 
to  another  without  passing  through  a  series  of  intermediate 
positions ;  a  point  in  motion,  therefore,  describes  a  continu- 
ous line."  Here  the  doctrine  is  referred  to  space  alone. 
But  as  originally  expressed  by  Leibnitz,  and  as  commonly 
understood,  it  refers  rather  to  velocity,  and  means  that  a 
moving  body,  in  passing  from  one  velocity  to  another,  passes 
through  all  intermediate  velocities.  In  this  sense  of  the 
law  Leibnitz  and  his  followers  regarded  it  as  a  self-evident 
truth,  and  from  it  they  deduced  a  number  of  propositions, 
notably  that  absolutely  solid  bodies  cannot  exist,  as  the  col- 
lision of  such  bodies  would  also  collide  with  the  law  of  con- 
tinuity. Others,  as  Prof.  Bayma  in  his  "Molecular  Me- 
chanics," have  deduced  from  the  same  law  both  the  neces- 
sity of  moving  forces  in  matter  which  act  at  a  distance  and 
also  the  punctual  character  of  the  elements.  It  is  plain 
that  if  two  absolutely  solid  bodies  collide,  the  change  of  ve- 
locity must  be  instantaneous ;  for  the  moment  of  collision 
is  indivisible,  and  if  they  rested  for  two  consecutive  instants, 
the  law  of  inertia  would  keep  them  at  rest  forever.  There 
would,  then,  be  an  instantaneous  passage  from  motion  to 
rest,  or  from  rest  to  motion,  or  from  one  velocity  to  another, 
and  thus  the  law  of  continuity  would  be  broken.  Hence 
bodies  must  begin  to  act  upon  one  another  before  the  time 
of  geometrical  contact;  and  hence  must  be  endowed  with 
moving  forces  which  can  act  at  a  distance.  It  is  plain  that 
the  law  of  continuity  cannot  be  held  on  the  old  theory  of 
geometrical  contact  in  the  collision  of  bodies;  and  hence 
the  law  in  this  sense  is  a  necessary  truth  only  so  far  as  the 
theory  of  moving  forces  in  matter  is  a  necessary  truth. 


252  METAPHYSICS. 

The  further  reasons  given  for  the  doctrine  are  mostly  in- 
consistent with  one  another.  It  is  said,  for  example,  that 
velocity  cannot  increase  by  leaps  without  implying  that  the 
same  body  has  two  different  velocities  at  the  same  instant ; 
but  this  is  the  same  fallacy  which  appeared  in  the  objections 
to  change.  Instant  is  taken  to  mean  a  short  duration, 
whereas  in  the  case  assumed  it  would  not  be  a  duration  of 
any  sort,  but  a  limit.  It  would  express  the  point  of  time 
when  one  motion  ceases  and  another  begins.  On  one  side 
of  the  point  the  velocity  would  be  v,  on  the  other  side  it 
would  be  vr  Moreover,  these  objections  are  inconsistent. 
They  do  not  rest  on  the  greatness  of  the  increment,  but  on 
the  fact  of  any  increment  whatever.  Hence  v  +  dv  is  just 
as  obnoxious  to  this  objection  as  v  +  vv  where  vl  is  a  finite 
velocity  and  dv  is  an  infinitesimal.  If,  then,  the  objection 
were  allowed,  the  changelessness  of  the  Eleatics  would  be 
the  necessary  conclusion ;  and  a  variable  velocity  of  any  kind 
would  be  impossible. 

The  end  aimed  at  in  this  doctrine  is  much  better  reached 
by  saying  that  no  finite  force  can  generate  a  finite  velocity 
in  less  than  finite  time.  This  statement  will  always  be  tol- 
erably secure  from  attack,  because  the  intensity  of  a  force  is 
measured  by  the  velocity  it  can  generate  in  a  finite  unit  of 
time.  If,  then,  a  force  should  generate  a  finite  velocity  in 
infinitesimal  time,  it  would  generate  an  infinite  velocity  in 
finite  time,  and  thus  by  definition  would  be  infinite.  But 
this  conception,  again,  assumes  that  the  force  shall  act  inces- 
santly like  gravitation.  In  the  case  of  absolute  solids,  im- 
pact would  be  attended  by  the  generation  or  destruction  of 
a  finite  velocity  in  a  point  of  time ;  yet  the  force  would  not 
be  infinite,  because  such  impact  would  necessarily  be  instan- 
taneous in  its  action.  Through  overlooking  this  fact,  some 
speculators  have  affirmed  that  in  case  of  impact  the  force 
must  be  infinite ;  but  their  argument  has  always  consisted 
in  confusing  action  by  impact  with  action  by  moving  forces. 
And  hence  we  conclude  once  more  that  the  continuity  of 


MOTION.  253 

velocity  is  a  doctrine  which  holds  only  in  a  system  which 
derives  all  motion  from  moving  forces,  which  forces,  again, 
act  not  only  through  space,  but  also  through  time.  And 
even  in  such  a  system  the  doctrine  assumes  the  reality  of 
time,  as  if  time  itself  had  a  significance  for  action.  In  our 
view  of  time,  difference  in  the  members  of  the  same  series 
is  time  itself.  It  follows,  then,  that  any  series  which  admits 
of  division  in  thought  will  necessarily  appear  to  be  in  time ; 
and  as  we  can  carry  the  division  of  velocity  to  any  desired 
extent,  velocity  must  appear  as  reached  by  infinitesimal  in- 
crements whose  sum  becomes  perceptible  only  in  finite  time. 
We  view  velocity  as  quantity,  and  measure  it  by  number. 
But  quantity  admits  of  indefinite  division ;  and  hence  we  are 
forced  to  make  the  final  units  indefinitely  small.  But  after 
we  have  posited  such  a  divisibility,  we  must  of  course  view 
the  whole  as  the  sum  of  the  infinitesimal  parts  implied  in 
our  position.  Their  summation  in  reality,  however,  must 
be  successive.  Hence,  even  in  the  case  of  impact  of  proper 
solids,  if  a  body  should  instantaneously  pass  from  velocity 
two  to  velocity  four,  we  should  seek  to  divide  the  increment 
into  parts  which  must  all  be  passed  through,  and  should  then 
try  to  reach  the  iustantaneousness  of  the  passage  by  increas- 
ing its  rate  to  infinity.  It  is  this  fact,  that  the  divisibility 
of  a  series  is  time,  which  makes  the  continuity  of  velocity 
apparently  self-evident. 

But  we  have  pointed  out  that  the  continuity  of  motion 
may  mean  continuity  in  space.  On  the  common  view  of 
space  as  containing  things,  this  doctrine  is  beyond  question. 
Sundry  difficulties  might  be  raised  by  a  sensational  philoso- 
phy, but  these  would  all  rest  on  a  denial  of  the  common 
view.  Our  own  theory  of  space  contains  a  paradox  at  this 
point.  If  space  be  subjective,  things  are  not  in  space,  but 
appear  under  the  form  of  space,  and  space  itself  is  only  the 
form  of  this  appearance.  The  position  of  things  in  phenom- 
enal space  is  but  an  expression  of  their  metaphysical  rela- 
tions to  one  another ;  and  an  apparent  change  of  position  is 


25±  METAPHYSICS. 

due  entirely  to  a  change  in  these  relations.  It  is,  then,  en- 
tirely possible  that  there  should  be  changes  of  such  a  kind 
as  to  imply  the  disappearance  of  a  body  at  a  given  point, 
and  its  reappearance  at  another  point,  yet  without  appearing 
at  any  of  the  intervening  positions.  Thus  the  appearance 
of  a  body  at  a  point,  A,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  sum  of 
its  interactions  with  other  non-spatial  realities  prescribes  the 
form  and  place  of  its  appearance.  It  is  quite  conceivable 
that  these  interactions  should  next  prescribe  that  it  appear 
at  An ;  and  in  that  case  it  would  disappear  at  A  and  reappear 
at  An.  But  the  complete  absence  of  any  such  fact  from  ex- 
perience points  to  a  certain  order  and  continuity  of  change 
in  these  metaphysical  relations  which  underlie  the  appear- 
ance of  motion.  If  this  change  were  discontinuous,  motion 
would  also  be  discontinuous  both  in  velocity  and  in  space ; 
and  in  that  case  all  calculation  would  be  impossible.  The 
actual  changes,  then,  are  such  that  the  appearance  of  the 
same  body  at  A  and  An  is  attended  by  its  successive  appear- 
ance at  A1?  A2,  A3,  etc.  This  order,  however,  is  to  be  viewed 
simply  as  a  fact,  and  not  as  a  rational  necessity. 

But  we  shall  find  it  of  advantage  to  leave  these  general 
considerations,  and  pass  to  consider  the  more  specific  laws 
of  motion.  And  fortunately  we  are  not  left  to  invent  or 
discover  these  laws  for  ourselves,  for  the  science  of  mechan- 
ics has  done  the  work  for  us.  We  have,  then,  only  to  ex- 
amine those  laws  which  are  found  necessary  in  interpreting 
phenomena,  and  which  are  justified  by  experience. 

The  first  and  basal  law  of  motion  is  that  of  inertia,  accord- 
ing to  which  a  body  cannot  start  or  stop  itself.  If  at  rest,  it 
remains  at  rest ;  and  if  in  motion,  it  remains  in  uniform  mo- 
tion in  a  straight  line  unless  interfered  with  from  without. 
Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  show  this  law  to  be  a 
necessity  of  thought,  but  without  success.  If  the  non-spon- 
taneity of  the  elements  be  allowed,  the  law  is,  of  course,  an 
identical  judgment,  for  the  law  is  simply  a  denial  of  spon- 


MOTION.  255 

taneity  with  regard  to  space-relations.  A  change  of  condi- 
tion is  always  an  effect,  and  presupposes  some  cause ;  and  if 
an  element  has  no  influence  over  its  own  states,  of  course  all 
change  must  come  from  without.  But  when  the  point  is  to 
know  whether  the  law  is  an  apriori  necessity,  we  must  in- 
quire whether  there  is  any  ground  for  saying  that  the  ele- 
ments must  be  of  this  sort.  That  they  are  such  may  be  al- 
lowed ;  but  that  they  must  be  such  is  not  made  to  appear. 
The  apparent  self-evidence  in  the  case  is  largely  due  to  the 
abstraction  of  a  material  point  with  which  mechanics  is  wont 
to  begin.  This  point  is  conceived  as  the  inert  and  rigid  sub- 
ject of  possible  motion,  and  in  itself  is  so  emptied  of  all  qual- 
ity as  to  contain  no  ground  of  activity  of  any  sort.  The  de- 
duction of  the  law  from  this  conception  is  easy  enough ;  but 
this  conception  is  a  pure  figment  of  the  imagination.  As 
applied  to  a  real  element,  even  the  first  part  of  the  law, 
which  asserts  that  a  body  at  rest  will  remain  at  rest  unless 
moved  by  something  outside  of  it,  is  not  self-evident.  It  is 
not  self-evident  that  an  element,  if  it  could  exist  alone  in 
space,  could  not,  whatever  its  nature,  begin  motion  ;  for  mo- 
tion, as  we  have  seen,  is  but  the  spatial  expression  of  an  in- 
ternal state,  and  if  that  state  were  given,  motion  would  re- 
sult. It  is  not  self-evident  that  the  inner  changes  of  such  a 
thing  could  never  result  in  that  state  which  expresses  itself 
in  motion. 

The  common  proof  of  the  first  part  of  the  law  consists  in 
bidding  us  conceive  a  single  element  in  void  space,  and  in 
pointing  out  that  there  is  no  more  reason  why  it  should 
move  in  one  direction  rather  than  in  another.  Then  the 
conclusion  is  drawn  that  the  element  will  remain  at  rest. 
But  the  law  of  the  sufficient  reason,  to  which  appeal  is  here 
made,  is  a  very  treacherous  ally.  We  could  use  it  with 
equal  propriety  to  prove  that  the  atom  could  not  be  •  in 
space  or  in  time.  For  every  point  of  space  or  time  is  like 
every  other,  and  hence  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be 
in  one  rather  than  in  any  other ;  and  hence  it  cannot  be  in 


256  METAPHYSICS. 

either  space  or  time.  It  is  well  known  that  Leibnitz,  the 
inventor  of  this  law,  was  perpetually  on  the  verge  of  pan- 
theism because  of  its  influence.  But  we  may  allow  that 
there  would  be  no  reason  in  space  itself  for  motion  in  one 
direction  rather  than  in  another ;  yet  that  would  not  prove 
that  there  might  not  be  a  reason  in  the  thing.  In  no  case 
does  space  determine  the  direction  of  motion ;  this  is  due  to 
the  interaction  of  things,  and  the  point  here  is  to  know  why 
an  element  might  not  of  itself  pass  into  that  internal  state 
which  appears  as  motion.  It  is  said  that  if  it  did,  the  mo- 
tion would  not  arise  from  rest,  but  from  an  internal  motion ; 
but  the  series  of  metaphysical  changes  in  things  are  motions 
only  in  a  rhetorical  sense.  If,  then,  a  thing  could  exist 
alone  and  maintain  a  series  of  inner  changes  in  its  solitary 
existence,  it  is  not  inconceivable  that  it  should  pass  into  mo- 
tion alone.  For  all  we  can  say,  there  might  be  a  tendency 
in  things  to  seek  a  certain  state,  as  in  elastic  bodies,  where 
any  departure  from  equilibrium  results  in  an  effort  to  re- 
store the  balance.  A  better  illustration  is  found  in  our  own 
mental  life,  where  every  state  is  not  compatible  with  inner 
harmony,  and  in  which  there  is  a  corresponding  effort  to  re- 
store the  internal  equilibrium.  Things,  then,  might  be  such 
as  to  be  in  conflict  with  themselves  when  forced  out  of  a  cer- 
tain state,  and  hence  they  might  have  an  inner  tendency  tow- 
ards that  state,  and  this  state  might  be  one  which  should  man- 
ifest itself  as  either  rest  or  motion,  according  to  its  nature. 

But  it  has  been  further  said  that  motion  could  not  result 
even  in  this  case,  because  direction  is  necessary  to  motion. 
If,  then,  this  state  which  implies  motion  should  exist,  it 
could  not  produce  motion  because  there  would  be  nothing 
to  determine  its  direction.  Motion  would  be  possible  in 
any  one  of  an  indefinite  number  of  directions,  and  as  every 
one  would  have  as  good  a  claim  as  every  other,  the  motion 
could  not  begin  at  all.  This  is  a  return  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  sufficient  reason,  and  does  not  reach  the  difficulty. 
Since  motion  involves  direction,  we  should  simply  say  that 


MOTION.  257 

the  state  supposed  to  be  produced  would  be  one  which 
should  contain  the  ground  of  direction  in  it.  Of  course, 
the  question  comes  up,  Why  one  direction  rather  than  an- 
other? And  the  answer  must  be  a  confession  of  ignorance. 
But  for  one  who  believes  in  the  reality  of  space  and  time, 
the  same  question  would  arise  concerning  the  existence  of 
the  element.  It  would  be  easy  to  develop  a  great  astonish- 
ment over  the  fact  that  the  atom  should  be  in  any  one  point 
rather  than  in  some  one  of  the  countless  other  points,  each  of 
which  has  as  good  a  right  to  its  presence.  And  this  astonish- 
ment would  have  as  much  ground  as  the  wonder  over  the 
atom's  motion  in  space.  Provided  the  existence  of  an  atom 
in  space  meant  anything  intelligible,  its  movement  and  di- 
rection would  be  no  more  wonderful  than  its  existence  in  a 
fixed  point.  The  fact,  whichever  it  might  be,  would  simply 
have  to  be  admitted.  Even  in  the  actual  system  we  come 
down  to  the  same  difficulty.  It  might  be  said  that  no  thing 
can  cause  another  to  move  by  any  attractive  force,  because 
the  possible  directions  are  infinite.  The  word  attraction 
must  not  mislead  us  into  overlooking  this  difficulty.  It  is 
by  no  means  self-evident  that  motion  must  take  place  along 
the  line  which  joins  the  bodies.  For  all  we  can  say,  it  might 
be  on  any  other  line  whatever.  Hence  the  attracting  body 
must  also  determine  the  direction,  and  by  the  law  of  the 
sufficient  reason  this  is  impossible.  But  by  the  law  of  fact 
the  conclusion  is  absurd.  Indeed,  the  entire  process  by  which 
this  law  is  deduced  is  purely  fictitious.  The  single  atom  in 
void  space  is  a  contradiction,  because  the  atoms  have  their 
existence  and  properties  only  in  the  system  of  which  they 
are  parts  or  implications.  The  sole  use  of  such  a  fiction  is 
to  impress  the  law  upon  the  imagination.  It  should  never 
be  tolerated  for  an  instant  as  an  argument.  But  if  we  will 
resort  to  such  a  fiction,  we  must  declare  that,  for  aught  any 
philosopher  or  physicist  knows,  a  single  element  in  space 
might  be  such  as  to  set  itself  in  motion. 

The  second  part  of  the  law  is  just  as  little  an  apriori  truth 
17 


258  METAPHYSICS. 

on  the  current  view  of  matter.  To  the  unreflecting,  indeed, 
it  even  seems  false ;  but  this  is  due  entirely  to  the  bondage 
of  the  senses.  First,  the  constant  direction  is  no  necessity 
of  thought.  Direction  itself  is  given  from  within,  and  not 
from  without.  Of  course,  in  reality  the  direction  is  prima- 
rily determined  from  without,  but  only  through  an  internal 
state,  so  that  the  thing  is  not  drawn,  but  driven  from  within 
towards  a  certain  point.  The  immediate  reason  why  a  thing 
is  moving  in  a  certain  direction  and  at  a  certain  rate  is  not 
found  in  external  things,  but  in  its  own  inner  state.  This  is 
especially  apparent  on  the  current  view  that  if  outer  things 
should  all  fall  away,  the  thing  would  continue  to  move  in 
the  same  direction  and  at  the  same  rate.  Direction,  then,  is 
finally  given  in  the  inner  state  of  the  moving  thing.  There 
is,  therefore,  no  absurdity  in  supposing  that  a  thing  should 
change  its  own  direction.  That  it  does  not  do  so  is  a  fact, 
not  a  necessity.  Here,  also,  appeal  is  made  to  the  principle 
of  the  sufficient  reason,  and  it  is  urged  that  there  is  no  rea- 
son why  the  change  should  be  on  one  side  rather  than  on 
the  other,  etc.  Of  course,  there  is  no  reason  in  space,  but  to 
say  that  there  is  none  in  the  thing  is  simply  to  beg  the  ques- 
tion. This  part  of  the  law  also  is  manifestly  no  necessity, 
but  at  most  only  a  fact. 

And  here  we  come  upon  a  peculiar  paradox  in  the  theory 
which  affirms  a  real  motion  in  a  real  space.  Motion,  we  have 
seen,  is  the  result  of  an  internal  state ;  and  direction  is  given 
in  the  same  state.  Motion  and  direction  are  inseparable, 
and  both  are  the  outcome  of  a  peculiar  inner  state.  This 
fact  leads  to  a  rather  odd  conclusion.  Spontaneous  thought 
finds  no  difficulty  in  affirming  the  existence  of  a  thing  in 
space,  and  also  the  mutual  indifference  of  the  thing  and 
space.  Space  is  not  altered  by  the  thing's  presence  or  ab- 
sence, and  the  thing  is  not  affected  by  change  of  place.  It 
is,  then,  quite  indifferent  to  the  thing  whether  it  be  in  one 
point  or  another.  The  solar  system  moves  through  space, 
but  remains  the  same.  But,  curiously  enough,  this  indiffer- 


MOTION.  259 

ence  cannot  be  maintained  when  the  things  begin  to  move  ; 
for  then  difference  of  direction,  as  well  as  difference  of  po- 
sition, becomes  possible.  The  first  impulse  is  to  say  that 
difference  of  direction  also  makes  no  difference  to  the  thing, 
that  a  thing  moving  north  is  in  no  respect  different  from 
one  moving  west.  But  this  impulse  is  misleading.  The 
difference  of  direction  must  have  some  ground  in  the  mov- 
ing things,  and  this  can  only  be  found  in  some  peculiarity 
of  internal  condition,  which  holds  one  to  its  northerly,  arid 
the  other  to  its  westerly,  direction.  Without  this  assump- 
tion, there  is  no  reason  why  direction  should  not  incessantly 
change.  If  we  should  fall  back  on  the  law  of  the  sufficient 
reason,  we  should  be  especially  unfortunate ;  as  the  lack  of 
any  state  determinative  of  direction  could  only  result  in  the 
thing's  coming  at  once  to  a  stand-still.  It  will  likely  be 
urged  that  there  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  thing's  going 
straight  ahead,  in  that  it  is  actually  moving  in  that  direction. 
If,  then,  a  thing  moving  west  were  internally  exactly  like 
one  moving  north,  still  each  would  continue  its  proper  mo- 
tion because  already  in  it.  This  seems  clear,  but  is  really 
unconvincing.  For  motion  is  simply  the  successive  exist- 
ence of  a  body  at  successive  points ;  and  the  fact  that  a  body 
has  been  at  points  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  is  no  reason  why  it  should 
pass  through  the  points  X,  Y,  and  Z.  At  any  given  point 
of  time,  there  must  be  some  reason  why  the  next  increment 
of  the  path  should  be  in  one  direction  rather  than  another. 
The  path  passed  over  is  not  in  the  thing,  but  behind  it. 
Direction,  geometrically  considered,  cannot  determine  any- 
thing. Why,  then,  shall  the  body  at  any  point  of  its  path 
take  one  direction  rather  than  another?  There  is  nothing 
to  do  but  to  declare  that  motion  and  direction  are  given  as 
inseparable  elements  of  the  same  internal  state,  and  that  this 
state  varies  with  the  direction.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  pos- 
sible directions  are  numberless;  and  we  are  shut  up  to  the 
affirmation  that  for  each  one  of  the  directions  there  is  a  spe- 
cial and  peculiar  inner  state.  Thus  we  should  have  to  give 


260  METAPHYSICS. 

up  the  indifference  of  things  to  space,  and  declare  that  all 
directions  in  absolute  space  have  their  representatives  in 
the  metaphysical  states  of  matter.  Of  course,  this  paradox 
does  not  exist  for  the  ideal  theory  of  space ;  but  the  realist 
might  find  it  hard  either  to  escape  it  or  to  admit  it. 

It  remains  to  consider  the  last  factor  of  the  law  of  inertia, 
the  uniformity  of  motion  when  not  interfered  with  by  ex- 
ternal objects.  This  also  follows  necessarily  from  the  as- 
sumption that  a  material  element  cannot  change  its  own 
state ;  but  it  is  no  more  a  necessary  truth  than  the  other 
factors  of  the  law.  But,  curiously  enough,  a  better  argument 
can  be  made  for  this  part  of  the  law  than  for  the  others.  If 
we  assume  that  a  finite  change  is  reached  only  through  suc- 
cessive increments,  and  hence  that  a  given  change  is  only 
the  sum  of  the  increments,  then  it  is  plain  that  there  could 
be  no  change  without  the  law ;  and  hence  motion  could 
never  begin  nor  end,  as  this  beginning  or  ending  would  be 
a  form  of  change.  If,  then,  motion  can  begin  or  cease,  the 
law  of  inertia  must  be  admitted  as  an  implication  of  this 
fact.  Taking  the  case  of  beginning  motion,  it  is  plain  that 
if  every  increment  perished  as  fast  as  produced,  there  could 
be  no  sum.  Each  new  increment  would  begin  with  zero, 
and  could  never  get  beyond  it.  Let  us  take  the  case  of  a 
body  falling  from  rest.  At  the  end  of  the  first  unit  of  time, 
which  may  be  taken  as  infinitesimal,  the  body  has  a  certain 
velocity  from  gravitation.  In  the  second  instant,  the  body 
is  supposed  to  retain  the  velocity  acquired  in  the  first,  and 
to  gain  an  additional  increment ;  and  so  on  in  successive  in- 
stants. If,  now,  we  suppose  the  acceleration  uniform,  the 
velocity  at  the  end  of  a  given  time  will  be  the  velocity  ac- 
quired in  the  unit  of  time  multiplied  by  the  number  of 
units.  But  it  is  plain  that  this  could  not  be  the  case  if  the 
law  of  inertia  did  not  hold ;  for  the  first  increment  of  ve- 
locity, dv,  in  the  first  instant,  dt,  would  perish  at  once ;  and 
hence  the  next  increment  of  velocity  would  begin  not  with 
dv,  but  with  plain  zero.  Hence  at  the  end  of  any  time,  t, 


MOTION.  261 

the  velocity  would  still  be  zero,  and  the  body  would  not 
have  moved.  It  may  at  first  appear  as  if  the  body  should 
have  moved  some  during  the  several  instants,  dt,  but  this  is 
seen  to  be  a  mistake,  when  we  remember  that  as  long  as  dt 
expresses  a  real  duration,  we  cannot  assume  that  dv  remains 
constant  through  dt  without  assuming  the  law  of  inertia. 
The  untruth  of  the  law  would  make  even  this  impossible, 
and  hence  each  minimum  increment  of  velocity  would  perish 
as  soon  as  born.  While,  then,  we  cannot  directly  prove  this 
part  of  the  law  of  inertia,  we  can  show  that  without  it  no 
motion  could  ever  begin.  The  corresponding  argument,  to 
show  that  motion  could  never  cease,  will  suggest  itself. 

Kespect  for  those  who  have  urged  this  argument  inclines 
us  to  accept  it,  especially  as  it  is  by  far  the  best  argument 
advanced.  It  does  not  aim  to  show  that  the  law  is  a  ne- 
cessity of  thought,  but  that  it  is  a  necessary  implication 
of  admitted  facts.  It  depends,  however,  entirely  upon  the 
assumed  truth  of  the  law  of  continuity,  or  on  the  assump- 
tion that  no  natural  force  can  instantaneously  produce  or 
destroy  a  finite  velocity.  If,  however,  gravity  were  capa- 
ble of  instantaneously  generating  any  finite  velocity,  motion 
would  be  possible  without  the  law  of  inertia ;  for  velocity 
would  be  renewed  as  fast  as  lost,  and  this  would  be  equiva- 
lent to  the  constancy  of  the  original  velocity.  In  a  foun- 
tain under  constant  pressure  the  column  of  water  stands 
always  at  the  same  height.  There  is,  indeed,  incessant  go- 
ing, but  there  is  also  incessant  coming;  and  the  one  bal- 
ances the  other.  If  gravity  were  a  constant  force,  no  accel- 
eration could  occur  under  such  circumstances ;  but  if  gravi- 
ty itself  varied,  variable  velocity  would  result.  Kor  would 
gravity  in  such  a  case  be  an  infinite  force;  for  it  would 
never  generate  an  infinite  velocity.  The  summation  of  the 
finite  velocities  instantaneously  produced  into  an  infinite 
sum  would  be  impossible  without  assuming  the  law  of  in- 
ertia. This  law  not  holding,  the  velocity  would  remain 
finite,  and  the  present  order  would  remain  unchanged. 


262  METAPHYSICS. 

There  is  no  need  to  consider  the  pretended  proof  from 
experience.  Nothing  remains  at  rest  absolutely,  and  noth- 
ing moves  with  uniform  velocity  in  a  straight  line.  If  a 
body  be  thrown  into  the  air,  it  quickly  loses  its  motion  even 
in  the  absence  of  that  friction  which  plays  so  prominent  a 
part  in  the  alleged  experimental  proofs  of  the  law.  As- 
suming the  law  to  be  correct,  we  must  account  for  these 
variations  by  external  forces ;  and  we  throw  on  these  forces 
the  burden  of  explaining  the  variations.  But  why  might 
we  not  assume  the  forces,  and  throw  the  burden  of  expla- 
nation on  the  laws  of  motion  ?  Or  might  we  not,  in  the 
spirit  of  Leibnitz's  monadology,  find  the  ground  of  all 
change  in  each  element  alone,  so  that  they  shall  have  vari- 
ous laws  of  motion  according  to  the  demands  of  the  system  ? 
In  that  case  the  laws  both  of  force  and  motion  would  be 
only  the  components  into  which  the  facts  fall  for  purposes 
of  our  calculation ;  and  the  agreement  of  fact  and  calcula- 
tion would  only  prove  the  practical  validity  of  the  laws, 
not  their  reality.  If  things  can  exist  independently,  this 
view  is  as  good  as  any. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  this  law  from  the  common 
standpoint  of  a  real  space  with  things  moving  in  it.  This 
view  we  have  found  to  involve  some  peculiar  paradoxes 
concerning  the  relation  of  space  to  motion  and  direction. 
In  addition  we  have  found  reason  to  complain  of  the  meth- 
od of  proof.  This  consists  in  setting  the  moving  subject 
apart  in  unreal  abstraction,  and  then  deducing  laws  for  real- 
ity from  purely  fictitious  and  impossible  cases.  Thus  the 
idea  of  a  system  is  overlooked  entirely,  and  the  attempt 
is  made  to  find  the  laws  of  the  system  by  denying  in  effect 
that  a  true  system  exists.  The  individual  has  been  assumed 
as  capable  of  existing  by  itself ;  and  against  this  view  our 
previous  criticisms  are  valid.  Of  such  elements,  one  law 
would  antecedently  be  no  more  probable  than  another ;  and 
the  validity  of  a  law  up  to  a  certain  point  would  be  no  war- 
rant for  its  universality.  If  any  deduction  of  this  law  is 


MOTION.  263 

possible,  it  must  be  from  considering  the  nature  of  the 
system  and  not  from  reflecting  on  those  parts  which  have 
been  hypostasized  into  an  unreal  and  impossible  indepen- 
dence. It  may,  then,  be  allowed  to  inquire  whether  any 
rational  insight  into  this  law  of  motion  can  be  reached  from 
the  general  character  of  the  system. 

Cosmology  deals  only  with  the  system  of  nature,  or  with 
what  we  mean  by  the  physical  system.  But  in  discussing 
interaction  we  have  seen  that  it  is  impossible  to  construct 
a  system  out  of  mutually  independent  elements.  The  nat- 
ure and  action  of  each  thing  must  be  determined  by  the 
nature  and  idea  of  the  whole.  But  this  idea  itself  can  de- 
termine nothing  except  as  it  is  set  in  reality.  Hence  the 
logical  implications  of  the  idea  are  realized  in  the  actual 
members  of  the  system ;  and  the  demands  of  the  whole 
upon  each  are  realized  through  the  mutual  interaction  of 
the  members.  Each,  then,  is  what  it  is,  and  does  what  it 
does,  because  all  the  rest  are  what  they  are  and  do  what  they 
do.  Interaction  in  general  means  simply  the  determination 
of  one  thing  by  another;  and  in  a  system  where  there  is 
nothing  but  interaction,  the  activities  of  each  thing  are  nec- 
essarily objective,  and  the  determinations  of  each  thing  are 
necessarily  from  without.  But  this  is  the  conception  we 
must  form  of  the  physical  system.  In  it  we  know  of  noth- 
ing but  interaction,  or  mutual  determination.  There  is  no 
ground  for  affirming  any  subjectivity  or  self-determination 
in  them ;  and  they  are  members  of  the  system  only  as  each 
is  what  the  system  demands.  If  in  addition  to  their  cos- 
mological  activity  they  also  maintain  an  inner  life,  they  be- 
long by  this  element  to  the  realm  of  psychology  and  not  to 
cosmology.  But  a  cosmology  is  possible  only  as  the  mem- 
bers interact  and  determine  one  another.  Law  and  system 
would  not  otherwise  exist.  Hence  the  law  of  inertia  in  its 
fullest  extent  must  reign  in  such  a  system.  Ko  element 
can  change  its  own  state  whatever  it  may  be ;  but  the 
ground  of  change  must  always  be  found  outside  of  the  ele- 


264:  METAPHYSICS. 

ment  itself.  If  it  were  otherwise,  then  the  state  of  an  ele- 
ment at  any  moment  would  not  be  an  expression  of  the  de- 
mands of  the  system  upon  it;  and  this  is  contrary  to  the 
notion  of  a  system.  Not  even  the  suggestion  already 
made  that  things  may  tend  to  a  certain  state  can  be  longer 
allowed ;  for  things  have  no  right  to  any  state  on  their  own 
account,  but  only  to  such  as  the  state  of  the  system  as  a 
whole  demands.  Hence  change  of  any  and  every  kind  in  a 
physical  element  must  be  referred  to  external  causes.  This 
is  the  law  of  inertia  in  its  very  broadest  sense ;  and  its  appli- 
cation to  motion  is  only  a  special  and  limited  case.  And 
we  reach  this  conclusion  not  by  considering  such  hyposta- 
sized  impossibilities  as  the  existence  of  a  single  element  in 
void  space ;  but  by  reflecting  on  the  demands  which  a  phys- 
ical system  must  make  upon  each  of  its  members.  In  so 
far  as  any  of  them  are  capable  of  independent  action,  they 
become  rebels  against  the  system  or  seceders  from  it.  These 
considerations  do  not,  indeed,  prove  the  law  to  be  an  onto- 
logical  necessity,  for  the  system  itself  is  no  necessity ;  but 
they  do  prove  that  there  can  be  no  physical  system  without 
the  law.  We  need  not,  then,  doubt  this  law  because  we 
know  nothing  about  the  mysterious  nature  of  things ;  for 
the  existence  of  a  system  at  all  implies  the  law.  Nor  need 
the  conclusion  be  confined  to  the  physical  elements  alone. 
Even  the  finite  spirit,  to  a  very  large  extent,  comes  under 
this  law ;  and  so  far  as  it  does  not,  it  exists  in  relative  inde- 
pendence of  the  physical  system.  If  the  mental  life  were 
absolutely  determined  by  our  interaction  with  the  system, 
the  law  of  inertia,  in  its  broadest  sense,  would  be  absolute 
for  mind  as  well  as  for  matter. 

"We  have  referred  in  the  discussion  of  being  to  the  at- 
tempts to  deny  a  dynamic  theory  of  matter  on  the  ground 
of  inertia.  The  vanity  of  these  efforts  appears  from  a  sim- 
ple inspection  of  the  law  itself.  As  applied  to  motion,  it 
declares  only  that  no  element  can  start  or  stop  of  itself. 
But  this  fact  has  no  relation  whatever  to  the  question  of 


MOTION.  265 

moving  forces,  whereby  they  may  cause  motion  in  one  an- 
other. In  its  broadest  meaning,  it  denies  that  any  element 
can  change  its  own  state,  whatever  it  may  be.  But  while 
this  law  does  not  exclude  the  possibility  of  moving  forces, 
it  does  exclude  the  independence  of  the  elements  to  which 
it  applies. 

The  law  of  inertia  is  the  basal  law  of  motion.  In  addi- 
tion, two  others  are  commonly  given,  which  are  as  mucli 
laws  of  force  as  of  motion.  The  first  of  these,  the  second 
law  of  Newton,  is  that  the  amount  of  motion  is  propor- 
tional to  the  moving  force,  and  is  in  the  direction  of  its 
action.  The  first  part  of  this  law  is  simple  enough.  Mo- 
tion being  an  effect,  must  of  course  vary  with  its  cause ; 
and,  besides,  the  intensity  of  the  force  is  measured  by  the 
motion  it  causes.  This  part  of  the  law  could  hardly  fail  to 
be  exact.  But  the  second  part  of  the  law  contains  implicitly 
the  doctrine  of  the  parallelogram  of  forces,  and  this  is  not  so 
self-evidently  true.  AVe  postpone  its  consideration,  and  pass 
to  the  next  law,  Newton's  third  law  of  motion,  the  equality 
of  action  and  reaction.  This  is  not  properly  a  law  of  mo- 
tion, but  of  action.  In  speaking  of  being,  we  pointed  out 
that  there  can  be  no  action  without  reaction.  In  such  a 
case  the  object  would  in  no  way  determine  the  agent,  and 
the  effect  would  be  created  outright.  Hence  all  interaction 
involves  reaction,  and  we  may  lay  it  down  as  an  axiom  of 
metaphysics  that  there  can  be  no  action  without  reaction. 
But  this  axiom  in  no  way  determines  the  nature  and  form 
of  the  reaction,  and  is  far  from  giving  us  the  third  law  of 
motion.  This  law  of  motion  is  besides  thoroughly  ambigu- 
ous, and  is  self-evident  only  in  one,  and  that  its  least  impor- 
tant, sense.  The  action  and  reaction  may  be  purely  static, 
as  when  one  thing  rests  on  another.  In  this  sense  the  law 
is  a  necessity  of  equilibrium.  If  the  table  did  not  press  up 
as  much  as  the  weight  on  it  presses  down,  it  would  be  broken. 
The  foundations  must  meet  the  downward  pressure  of  the 
building  by  an  equal  upward  pressure,  or  motion  and  col- 


266  METAPHYSICS. 

lapse  will  result.  But  action  and  reaction  may  be  dynamic 
also,  as  when  the  earth  attracts  the  sun  and  the  sun  attracts 
the  earth;  and  in  this  case  the  law  is  no  self-evident  neces- 
sity. It  is  common  to  speak  of  this  as  a  case  of  tension,  and 
to  illustrate  by  a  tense  cable.  If  a  person  in  one  boat  pulls 
at  another  boat,  each  boat  moves  towards  the  other,  and  ac- 
tion and  reaction  are  equal.  At  any  point  whatever  in  the 
cable  there  is  equal  tension  in  both  directions.  But  this  il- 
lustration is  of  no  use  until  it  is  shown  that  attraction  takes 
place  through  a  cable.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  conceiving 
that  a  magnet  should  attract  iron  without  being  attracted 
by  it.  The  magnet  causes  in  the  iron  a  state  which  tends  to 
translate  itself  into  motion  towards  the  magnet,  but  this  in 
no  way  implies  that  the  iron  must  cause  a  similar  state  in  the 
magnet.  Neither  act  implies  the  other.  The  same  is  true 
for  attraction  in  general.  The  attraction  of  any  one  ele- 
ment does  not  imply  the  attraction  of  any  other.  This  is 
all  the  more  evident  from  the  fact  that  many  physicists 
have  spoken  very  freely  of  repulsive  elements  which  meet 
attraction  with  repulsion.  It  is,  indeed,  a  grave  misuse  of 
language  to  speak  of  anything  as  reaction  which  is  not  di- 
rectly elicited  by  the  preceding  action.  Repulsion  due  to 
pressure,  or  to  repulsive  forces  called  into  play  by  previous 
motion,  is  properly  described  as  reaction,  because  it  results 
from  the  previous  action  ;  but  the  attraction  of  one  element 
upon  another  is  in  no  sense  a  reaction  from  the  attraction  of 
the  other  upon  it.  This  confusion  of  so  many  things  under 
a  common  term  is  what  makes  this  law  such  an  inexhausti- 
ble mine  of  truth  in  the  view  of  English  physicists.  That 
the  law,  in  this  wide  sense,  is  based  entirely  upon  induction 
needs  no  further  proof. 

The  next  law  of  motion  which  calls  for  consideration  is 
that  relating  to  the  composition  of  motions.  This  law  is 
implicit  in  Newton's  second  law  of  motion.  If  the  abstrac- 
tions of  kinematics  were  realities,  we  might  at  once  allow 
the  parallelogram  of  motions  to  be  a  rational  necessity.  If 


MOTION.  267 

the  tendency  to  move  in  each  of  two  directions  is  to  be  sat- 
isfied, it  can  only  be  as  the  motion  is  along  the  diagonal  of 
the  parallelogram  on  the  lines  representing  the  tendencies 
and  directions.  But,  in  reality,  it  is  not  a  question  of  com- 
pounding motions,  but  of  finding  the  resultant  of  forces  which 
tend  to  cause  the  motions ;  and  this  introduces  new  difficul- 
ties into  the  question.  The  law  is  sufficiently  justified  in 
practice  to  exclude  any  doubt  of  its  validity  in  all  molar 
motions.  Its  necessity,  however,  is  quite  another  thing,  and 
depends  on  certain  assumptions  which  are  far  from  self-evi- 
dent. The  chief  one  is  that  each  force  shall  have  its  full 
and  proper  effect  in  a  crowd  as  well  as  when  acting  alone. 
Thus  if  A  and  B  both  attract  C,  the  law  assumes  that  each 
shall  have  its  proper  influence  without  regard  to  the  other. 
On  this  assumption  the  resultant  must  be  represented  by 
the  diagonal  of  the  parallelogram  on  A  and  B.  But  this  is 
so  far  from  necessary  that  it  is  antecedently  improbable.  It 
would  seem  as  if  the  effect  of  a  new  impulse  ought  to  de- 
pend on  the  previous  state  of  the  subject.  This  is  the  case 
in  the  only  subject  of  which  we  have  direct  knowledge. 
The  effect  of  a  new  thought  or  desire  depends  very  largely 
on  the  character  of  the  thoughts  and  desires  already  in  the 
mind.  The  same  thing  affects  us  diversely  according  to  our 
mood  or  preoccupation.  It  is,  therefore,  a  surprise  to  find 
that  the  elements  are  never  preoccupied,  but  are  always 
open  to  any  new  impulse  whatever.  This  is  so  strange,  and 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  mental  life  so  paradoxical,  that 
we  can  allow  the  law  only  as  a  fact,  and  only  so  far  as  it  is 
justified  by  experience.  It  is  possible  that  in  the  molecular 
realm,  especially  in  chemistry  and  biology,  the  law  may  be 
modified. 

Another  assumption  is  commonly  read  into  this  law  which 
does  not  belong  in  it.  The  law  itself  says  nothing  of  the 
nature  or  origin  of  the  forces,  but  views  them  all  alike  as 
moving  forces.  They  may  be  qualitatively  distinct  other- 
wise ;  but  as  moving  forces  they  all  stand  on  the  same  plane, 


268  METAPHYSICS. 

and  their  effects  are  combined  according  to  the  parallelogram 
of  motions.  But  it  is  generally  further  assumed  that  the 
forces  themselves  act  in  the  same  way,  whether  singly  or  in 
a  crowd.  The  action  of  a  given  element  is  not  affected  by 
aggregation,  but  only  by  its  own  position  in  space.  The 
same  amount  of  matter,  at  the  same  distance  from  the  earth, 
will  attract  with  the  same  intensity  whatever  its  form  may 
be.  But  this  also  is  no  necessity  of  thought,  and  from  the 
standpoint  of  human  experience  it  is  antecedently  improba- 
ble. If  such  variation  were  allowed,  it  would,  indeed,  in- 
crease the  difficulty  of  calculation  indefinitely ;  but  this 
proves  nothing.  As  it  is,  we  regard  the  action  of  a  com- 
pound as  the  sum  of  the  acts  of  the  components,  and  we 
reach  the  total  action  by  summing  up  the  effects  of  the  sep- 
arate factors.  If  it  were  otherwise,  we  should  have  a  prob- 
lem immeasurably  more  complex  than  that  of  three  bodies. 
In  the  latter  case  we  have  to  find  the  positions  of  bodies 
from  forces  which  depend  on  the  positions  which  are  to 
be  found  ;  but  in  the  former  case  we  should  have  the  addi- 
tional difficulty  of  not  knowing  even  the  law  of  the  forces. 
The  parallelogram  of  forces  might  still  be  valid,  but  it 
would  be  useless.  The  actual  forces  would  depend  upon 
the  aggregation  or  velocity  of  the  elements,  and  could  be 
known  only  from  their  resultant.  Nevertheless,  the  inde- 
pendent action  of  each  element  as  assumed  in  mechanics  is 
so  far  from  a  necessary  truth  that  it  is  not  even  known  to 
be  true  at  all  except  in  the  case  of  gravity.  In  particular 
it  has  been  suggested  as  a  help  to  the  mechanical  theory  of 
life  that  possibly  the  elements  in  the  organism  no  longer 
work  under  this  law,  but  under  some  other  which  expresses 
the  idea  of  the  organism.  In  that  case  the  elements  would 
owe  their  properties  to  the  mode  of  aggregation.  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  get  any  clear  idea  from  this  theory  beyond  the 
negative  suggestion  that  the  common  assumption  of  the 
independent  action  of  each  element  may  not  be  true.  At 
all  events  it  is  plain  that  if  the  common  doctrine  is  correct, 


MOTION.  269 

it  cannot  be  viewed  as  a  rational  necessity,  but  only  as  a 
fact. 

The  science  of  mechanics  is  founded  on  the  basal  assump- 
tion of  the  spatial  continuity  of  motion ;  and  the  applica- 
tion of  the  calculus  assumes  also  the  continuity  of  velocity. 
The  laws  of  the  science  are  the  law  of  inertia,  the  equality 
of  action  and  reaction,  and  the  parallelogram  of  forces. 
These  laws  and  assumptions  constitute  the  outfit  of  the  sci- 
ence; and  all  more  general  considerations  are  commonly 
ignored  as  having  no  practical  interest.  But  with  the  ex- 
ception of  inertia  we  have  found  no  rational  necessity  for 
any  of  these  principles.  They  must,  therefore,  be  admitted 
as  simple  facts  or  else  founded  in  purpose.  For  the  theist, 
the  latter  alternative  is  a  necessity ;  but  the  nature  of  that 
purpose  is  very  dimly  seen.  With  the  Cartesians,  the  con- 
stancy of  the  sum  of  motion  in  the  system  was  the  funda- 
mental law  of  motion  from  which  all  others  must  be  de- 
duced. But  this  law  is  no  fact  of  reality,  and  hence  cannot 
be  the  ground  of  the  laws  of  motion.  Leibnitz  and  his  fol- 
lowers insisted  strongly  on  the  contingency  of  the  laws  of 
motion  and  on  the  necessity  of  referring  them  to  choice 
and  purpose;  and  Maupertuis  claimed  to  have  found  this 
purpose  in  what  he  called  the  principle  of  least  action.  For 
a  time  the  law  of  least  action  was  viewed  as  the  fundamen- 
tal law  of  motion  from  which  all  the  others  could  be  de- 
duced. Like  the  law  of  continuity,  this  law  was  forthwith 
extended  to  everything  and  lost  all  definite  meaning.  In 
this  generality,  it  gave  birth  in  abundance  to  such  princi- 
ples as,  Nature  does  nothing  in  vain,  or  Nature  takes  the 
shortest  road  to  the  goal,  or  Nature  produces  results  in  the 
simplest  way.  Such  principles  mean  nothing  and  lead  to 
nothing,  unless  we  know  what  the  aims  of  Nature  are,  and 
what  the  standard  of  least  action  is  to  be.  "Without  such 
insight  everything  is  arbitrary. 

Euler  defended  this  law  as  a  metaphysical  principle  in 


270  METAPHYSICS. 

his  "  Letters  to  a  German  Princess ;"  but  deduced  it  from  a 
peculiar  dynamic  conception,  according  to  which  all  moving 
forces  are  but  consequences  of  impenetrability.  The  body 
attacked  resists  with  just  as  much  force  as  is  needed  to 
maintain  its  own  impenetrability;  and  the  amount  of  action 
is  the  least  possible  which  will  secure  this  end.  Of  course 
it  could  not  react  more  than  is  necessary ;  for  as  soon  as  the 
attacking  body  is  brought  to  rest  or  thrown  off,  the  impen- 
etrability of  the  body  attacked  is  no  longer  imperilled,  and 
action  ceases.  But  in  this  sense  the  law  amounts  to  no 
more  than  the  third  law  of  motion  in  its  static  sense,  and 
is  far  from  justifying  the  conclusions  which  both  Euler  and 
Maupertuis  drew  from  it.  Finally,  as  a  law  of  motion  the 
principle  has  no  clear  meaning.  Laplace  and  Lagrange 
have  shown  that  the  principle,  such  as  it  is,  is  but  a  conse- 
quence of  the  laws  of  motion,  and  have  denied,  therefore, 
that  it  is  a  law  of  motion  at  all.  But  this  fact  in  itself 
would  not  forbid  that  it  should  be  viewed  as  the  ground  of 
those  laws  from  which  it  is  deduced.  When  premises  have 
been  obtained  from  a  conclusion,  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
recovering  the  conclusion  from  the  premises.  If,  then,  the 
laws  of  motion  were  consequences  of  the  law  of  least  action, 
this  law  could  be  deduced  from  the  laws  of  motion.  The 
real  trouble  is  that  the  law  is  vague  in  its  meaning  and  ar- 
bitrary in  its  determination  of  what  shall  be  considered  the 
standard  of  least  action.  "When  it  is  measured  by  the  inte- 
gral of  the  product  of  the  mass  into  the  velocity  and  the 
element  of  the  path  described,  one  cannot  help  feeling  that 
this  is  a  rather  artificial  standard  of  least  action ;  and  even 
this  does  not  apply  to  many  cases.  While,  then,  we  hold 
that  the  plan  of  the  system  contains  the  ground  why  the 
laws  of  motion  are  as  they  are,  it  can  hardly  be  held  that 
the  principle  of  least  action  offers  an  end  sufficiently  clear 
in  its  meaning  and  obvious  in  its  value  to  serve  as  their 
final  cause. 

The  conservation  of  energy  has  likewise  been  offered  as 


MOTIOX.  271 

the  principle  from  which  the  laws  of  motion  have  been  de- 
duced. But  this  theory  itself  is  only  a  complex  consequence 
of  the  laws  of  force  and  motion,  and  depends  upon  them 
entirely  for  its  proof.  It  is  in  no  sense  self-evident,  as  some 
speculators,  in  complete  ignorance  of  its  meaning,  have 
sought  to  show.  It  cannot,  then,  be  used  to  prove  its  own 
assumptions.  Moreover,  as  an  end,  it  has  no  such  pre-emi- 
nent worth  as  to  make  it  absurd  to  ask  why  such  an  end 
should  be  chosen.  It  hardly  seems  worth  while  to  create  a 
system  simply  that  the  sum  of  its  kinetic  and  potential  en- 
ergies should  be  a  constant  quantity.  If,  however,  it  were 
revealed  that  this  is  the  highest  law  of  the  system,  then  the 
laws  of  motion  might  be  deduced  from  it. 

All  the  laws  of  motion  which  have  been  mentioned  apply 
only  to  translation  in  straight  or  curved  lines.  In  both  ro- 
tation and  translation  the  elements  of  a  body  change  their 
place  in  space.  But  why  might  there  not  be  a  rotation  of 
the  element  on  itself  ?  The  physicists  have  been  much  em- 
barrassed to  determine  the  forms  of  the  various  motions 
which  constitute  the  different  molecular  energies.  If  the 
motions  were  all  alike  there  would  be  no  ground  of  differ- 
ence in  the  energies ;  but  it  is  a  great  puzzle  to  know  in  what 
the  difference  consists.  Some  physicists  have  suggested  that 
the  heat-motion  consists  in  an  expansion  and  contraction  of 
the  atom  on  itself.  The  rotation  of  the  atom  on  itself  seems 
to  be  quite  as  promising  a  fancy  as  this.  By  varying  the 
plane  and  rate  of  such  rotation,  room  for  many  new  combi- 
nations would  be  given ;  and  inasmuch  as  any  hypothetical 
difference  in  the  arrangement  of  the  elements  is  always  sup- 
posed to  account  for  actual  differences  of  outcome,  no  mat- 
ter whether  any  connection  between  the  alleged  cause  and 
the  observed  effect  can  be  seen  or  not,  this  new  factor  for 
new  permutations  could  hardly  fail  to  throw  a  grand  light 
on  many  of  the  obscurities  of  molecular  mechanics. 

Of  course  we  do  not  fancy  that  theoretical  mechanics 
should  busy  itself  with  questions  of  the  sort  discussed  in  this 


272  METAPHYSICS. 

chapter.  It  assumes  the  laws  of  motion  and  calculates  their 
consequences.  This  practical  procedure  is  all  that  can  be 
demanded  in  practice,  and  is  quite  consistent  with  a  com- 
plete ignorance  of  the  underlying  metaphysical  questions. 
After  the  mathematician  has  said  the  most  absurd  things 
about  matter  and  motion  in  general,  he  may  still  work  his 
formulas  with  the  utmost  ingenuity  and  be  the  safest  of 
guides  in  calculation.  What  was  said  in  discussing  space 
concerning  the  ideal  theory  may  be  recalled  here.  Whether 
motion  be  a  fact  of  reality,  or  only  an  appearance,  is  indiffer- 
ent to  mechanics  so  long  as  we  insist  on  fixed  principles  of 
translation  into  the  forms  of  intuition.  In  that  case  the 
phenomenon  can  never  contradict  the  fact,  because  it  is  the 
way  in  which  the  fact  necessarily  appears.  There  can  be  no 
visual  opposition  between  the  color  we  see  and  the  vibrations 
which  cause  it ;  for  these  can  appear  to  sight  only  as  color. 
In  like  manner  there  can  be  no  opposition  between  the 
unpicturable  interactions  which  underlie  the  appearance  of 
space  and  motion,  and  the  appearances  themselves. 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  273 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MATTER  AND   FORCE. 

ONE  of  the  many  crudities  of  uncritical  thinking  is  the 
fancy  that  the  content  of  the  notion  of  matter  is  given  in 
sense-perception.  Accordingly,  we  often  find  matter  treated 
as  immediately  and  indisputably  given,  while  God  and  the 
soul  are  viewed  as  hypotheses  which  are  to  be  allowed  only 
so  long  as  the  undoubted  fact,  matter,  does  not  account  for 
the  phenomena.  But  our  growing  insight  into  the  nature 
and  possibilities  of  matter  is  continually  displacing  these 
provisional  and  hypothetical  explanations,  and  will  probably 
end  in  their  abandonment  altogether.  Often  enough  the 
principle  of  parsimony  is  invoked  to  forbid  the  assumption 
of  any  but  material  causes  before  wre  have  proved  that  mat- 
ter is  insufficient ;  and  as  this  involves  the  proof  of  a  nega- 
tive, materialism  has  triumphed.  This  fancy  that  the  notion 
of  matter  is  immediately  given  results  from  confounding 
matter  as  phenomenon  with  matter  as  cause.  Matter  as 
phenomenon  is  given  in  sense-perception  ;  but  matter  as 
cause  can  be  reached  only  by  reflection.  It  is  a  purely  specu- 
lative and  metaphysical  notion,  whose  content  can  be  deter- 
mined only  by  reason.  Matter  as  phenomenon  is  clear ;  it 
means  the  various  bodies  which  our  senses  reveal.  By  matter 
as  cause  we  can  only  mean  the  agent  or  agents  which,  existing 
or  appearing  in  space,  produce  the  appearances  we  call  ma- 
terial. The  problem  is  to  pass  from  matter  as  it  appears  to 
matter  as  we  must  think  of  it ;  and  this  problem  cannot  be 
solved  by  the  senses,  but  only  by  the  reason.  The  senses 
18 


274  METAPHYSICS. 

furnish  the  data.  The  speculative  reason  draws  the  appro- 
priate conclusion.  All  theories  of  matter  are  alike  specula- 
tive ;  and  all  alike  modify  the  spontaneous  judgment  of 
common-sense.  The  hylozoist  introduces  an  inner  life  and 
plasticity  into  matter  of  which  the  senses  give  no  hint.  The 
atomist  also  introduces  forces  and  factors  into  the  elements 
which  are  no  facts  of  perception.  The  Cartesian  pays  so 
little  respect  to  the  senses  as  to  identify  matter  with  exten- 
sion and  make  it  omnipresent  in  space.  From  hylozoism  to 
the  various  forms  of  atomism  the  theories  are  alike  infer- 
ences, and  not  facts  of  observation. 

In  one  important  point  the  problem  proposed  has  been 
solved  by  modern  physics.  This  is  the  question  between 
the  atomic  and  the  non-atomic  views  of  matter.  For  vari- 
ous reasons  speculators  have  been  inclined  to  a  non-atomic 
conception  of  matter.  In  particular,  they  fancied  that  such 
a  view  secured  greater  unity  in  our  theory  of  things.  They 
were  also  misled  by  the  fact  that  the  notion,  matter,  is  one, 
to  think  that  the  thing  must  be  one  also.  And  since  the 
notion  is  one,  they  fancied  that  things  must  all  be  accidents 
or  modifications  of  one  and  the  same  matter.  But  the  non- 
atomic  conception  has  not  only  failed  to  explain  material 
phenomena,  but  it  leads  to  results  which  facts  directly  con- 
tradict. By  consequence,  physical  science  is  based  entirely 
on  some  form  of  the  atomic  theory.  We  accept  the  results 
of  the  debate  without  recalling  it.  Our  work  will  be  to  dis- 
cuss the  atomic  theory  itself  in  order  to  see  how  the  theory 
must  be  held  in  order  to  satisfy  both  the  facts  and  the  laws 
of  thought.* 

The  immediate  aim  of  the  workers  in  any  special  depart- 
ment of  science  is  to  explain  the  facts  of  that  department 
without  reference  to  the  facts  of  other  departments;  and 

*  For  the  worthlessness  and  untenability  of  the  non-atomic  theory,  see  Fech- 
ner's  "  Physikalische  und  Philosophische  Atomenlehre."  For  a  history  and 
criticism  of  the  various  theories  of  matter,  see  Karsten's  "  Encyclopedic  der 
Physik,"  vol.  i. 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  275 

they  are  satisfied  if  they  succeed  in  getting  some  general 
way  of  looking  at  the  facts  of  their  own  department  which 
shall  have  even  the  practical  value  of  helping  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  memory.  On  this  account  the  atomic  theory 
takes  on  different  forms  according  to  the  character  of  the 
facts  on  which  it  is  based.  For  the  astronomer,  the  atoms 
are  simply  centres  of  gravity  ;  and  for  him  molecular  forces 
and  etherial  media  are  non-existent.  Each  atom  attracts 
every  other  with  an  intensity  which  varies  inversely  as  the 
square  of  the  distance ;  and  he  needs  no  other  assumption. 
But  the  physicist  who  studies  other  phenomena  needs  other 
assumptions.  For  him  the  atoms  split  up  into  two  great 
classes  of  ponderable  and  imponderable,  and  are  endowed 
with  various  molecular  forces  as  well  as  with  the  universal 
force  of  gravity.  Even  these  conceptions  will  be  modified 
according  as  he  studies  heat,  or  light,  or  electricity,  or  mag- 
netism. The  conceptions  which  are  all  sufficient  for  one 
realm  do  not  suffice  for  another.  The  chemist  also  builds  up 
an  atomic  theory  from  the  facts  of  chemistry,  but  his  con- 
ception differs  very  widely  from  that  of  the  physicist.  The 
physicist  makes  much  of  the  ether ;  while  the  chemist  has 
very  little  use  for  it.  The  physicist  conceives  of  the  atoms 
as  endowed  with  universal  forces  ;  while  the  chemist  endows 
them  with  selective  forces.  The  physicist  urges  the  chem- 
ist to  view  the  molecules  as  little  planetary  systems ;  but  the 
chemist  replies  that  such  a  conception  is  useless  in  his  sci- 
ence. Except  that  the  theories  of  both  are  atomic,  they 
have  very  little  in  common.  The  mineralogist  and  physi- 
ologist in  like  manner  introduce  new  conceptions.  Unfor- 
tunately, very  little  attention  has  been  paid  by  students  of 
physical  science  to  comparing  and  supplementing  the  several 
partial  views  which  have  thus  arisen.  Indeed,  it  is  not  clear 
that  these  views  admit  of  being  united  into  a  consistent 
theory.  Thus  the  doctrine  is  held  in  each  department  with 
only  such  exactness  as  the  facts  of  that  department  call  for; 
and  if  the  conception  prove  a  fruitful  one  in  practice,  or 


' 


276  METAPHYSICS. 

even  a  convenient  one  for  representing  the  facts  to  the  im- 
agination, little  attention  is  paid  to  theoretical  consistency 
or  to  agreement  with  the  results  in  other  departments.  But, 
as  thus  held,  the  atomic  theory  can  be  viewed  only  as  a  con- 
venient practical  fiction  like  that  of  the  two  fluids  in  elec- 
tricity ;  for  it  would  be  intolerable  that  every  department 
of  physical  study  should  have  its  own  peculiar  set  of  atoms. 
Such  a  claim  would  explode  the  theory.  It  is  necessary, 
therefore,  in  some  way  to  unite  the  various  conceptions  into 
one.  Yet,  owing  to  the  facts  mentioned,  while  the  students 
of  physical  science  are  agreed  as  to  the  necessity  of  an  atomic 
theory  as  opposed  to  the  continuity  of  matter,  there  is  no 
agreement  whatever  as  to  the  true  conception  of  this  theory. 
Accordingly,  atomism  has  all  forms  from  the  corpuscular 
philosophy  of  the  Greeks  to  the  centres  of  force  of  Bosco- 
vich  and  the  vortex-rings  of  Sir  William  Thompson.  The 
most  common  form  is  a  modification  of  the  corpuscular  phi- 
losophy. In  this  view  the  atoms  and  the  void  play  their 
well-known  part ;  but  the  atoms  are  enabled  to  play  this  part 
by  the  addition  of  moving  forces  which  in  some  mysterious 
way  dwell  in  the  atoms  without  being  a  consequence  of 
them,  and  yet  are  inseparable  from  them.  In  this  view  the 
atom  is  spoken  of  as  the  home,  or  seat,  or  fulcrum,  of  the 
force ;  and  the  force  is  viewed  as  imparted,  implanted,  lo- 
cated, etc.  It  is  also  variously  proposed  to  view  the  atoms 
as  alike  in  essence,  but  unlike  in  form  ;  or  as  alike  in  form, 
but  as  unlike  in  size ;  or  as  alike  in  form  and  size,  but  unlike 
in  grouping ;  or  as  alike  in  these  respects,  but  unlike  in 
energy  or  in  intensity  of  action ;  so  that  difference  of  atomic 
weight,  for  example,  shall  not  depend  on  a  difference  of 
size  or  quantity  of  matter,  but  on  a  different  intensity  of 
attraction  ;  and,  finally,  it  is  proposed  to  view  the  atoms  as 
qualitatively  unlike  apart  from  all  quantitative  and  geometri- 
cal relations.  Some  of  the  atomic  theories  view  the  atoms 
as  having  all  the  properties  of  the  bodies  about  us ;  and 
others  view  them  as  essentially  unlike  the  bodies  which  they 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  277 

found.  The  former  are  more  in  harmony  with  our  spon- 
taneous thinking,  while  the  latter  are  more  speculative  and 
critical.  But  whenever  any  of  these  views  claim  to  be  more 
than  convenient  practical  fictions,  they  must  at  least  be  self- 
consistent  ;  and  they  must  also  meet  those  general  demands 
which  we  make  upon  all  reality.  To  determine  the  specific 
properties  of  the  atoms  will  always  belong  to  inductive 
science ;  to  determine  their  general  outline  is  the  work  of 
metaphysics. 

The  corpuscular,  or  lump,  conception  of  the  atoms  has  one 
very  great  advantage ;  it  is  easily  pictured  to  the  imagina- 
tion, and  calls  for  no  effort  of  thought.  It  takes  only  the 
conceptions  of  space,  form,  and  solidity  with  which  we  are 
familiar,  and,  with  these,  claims  to  solve  all  the  problems 
which  phenomenal  matter  presents.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  has  a  methodological  difficulty  in  that  its  explanations  are 
but  repetitions  in  the  mass  of  what  is  given  in  the  unit.  On 
this  theory,  there  can  be  no  explanation  of  any  property  of 
body  which  is  not  first  assumed  in  the  atom.  This  is  espe- 
cially the  case  with  extension  and  solidity.  The  extension 
of  the  mass  is  viewed  as  the  sum  of  the  extensions  of  the 
atoms,  and  the  solidity  of  the  mass  is  viewed  as  resulting 
from  the  solidity  of  the  elements.  Moreover,  this  theory 
has  always  had  an  idealistic  factor  in  it  by  virtue  of  its  ex- 
cess of  materialism.  Looking  at  the  moving  atoms  with  the 
eye  of  pure  reason,  we  see  nothing  but  quantitative  distinc- 
tions and  relations.  Qualitative  distinctions  and  relations 
are  contributed  by  the  mind  of  the  spectator;  and  these 
constitute  the  chief  problem  for  explanation.  Without  the 
spectator  the  problems  would  not  only  not  be  raised,  they 
would  not  even  exist.  A  mind  which  could  completely 
grasp  the  moving  elements  as  they  are  in  themselves,  but 
not  as  they  appear,  would  miss  the  most  important  problems 
of  the  system.  Thus  we  reach  the  paradox  that  an  absolute 
knowledge  of  the  system  would  find  in  it  very  little  that 
would  demand  interpretation.  This  difficulty  exists  not 


/ 

Y 


278  METAPHYSICS. 

only  for  the  corpuscular  philosophy  of  the  Greek  atomists, 
but  for  all  the  current  schemes  of  mechanical  evolution.  In 
all  of  these  the  evolved  products  are  phenomenal  only,  and 
hence  exist  only  for  the  spectator.  They  have  no  signifi- 
cance for  the  realities  which  conduct  or  underlie  the  process, 
and  are  but  the  way  in  which  we  look  at  the  eternal  flow 
of  being. 

The  corpuscular  philosophy  finds  its  purest  illustration  in 
the  atomism  of  the  ancient  Greeks.  The  two  factors  of 
their  view  were  the  atoms  and  the  void.  The  atoms  were 
viewed  as  absolutely  solid,  and  as  secure  in  their  solid  single- 
ness against  all  division  and  destruction.  Moving  forces 
were  left  out  of  the  account  altogether.  But,  apart  from 
the  fact  that  the  mutual  independence  ascribed  to  the  atoms 
made  all  interaction,  even  of  impact,  impossible,  it  has  long 
been  recognized  that  such  atoms  would  explain  nothing.  In 
particular,  the  facts  of  chemistry  call  for  an  atomic  concep- 
tion which  has  little  but  the  name  in  common  with  the, 
ancient  atomism.  The  atoms  which  modern  science  calls 
for  are  atoms  which  are  not  in  mutual  independence  and 
indifference,  but  which  are  parts  of  a  whole,  and  which  are 
not  left  to  chance  as  the  ground  of  their  orderly  combina- 
tions. On  this  account  the  new  conception  of  motor-forces 
has  been  added.  But  these  forces  have  generally  been 
added  in  a  very  clumsy  way.  A  passive  solidity  has  been 
assumed  as  a  foundation;  and  then  forces  have  been  im- 
parted to  this  inert  lump  in  a  highly  mysterious  fashion. 
information  is  given  as  to  where  the  forces  come  from, 
or  what  their  inner  relation  is  to  the  matter  which  they  are 
said  to  inhere  in,  or  inhabit.  And  yet,  though  matter  and 
force  are  thus  brought  together  by  an  act  of  pure  violence, 
and  though  neither  seems  to  give  any  account  of  the  oth- 
er, an  edict  is  issued  against  separating  them,  and  it  even 
passes  into,  a  first  principle  that  there  is  no  matter  without 
force  and  no  force  without  matter.  Meanwhile  the  corpus- 
cular conception  of  the  atom  as  absolutely  solid  and  as  hav- 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  279 

ing  a  changeless  volume  is  retained ;  and  then  to  make  room 
for  motion  and  to  account  for  the  form  and  coherence  of 
bodies,  these  atoms  are  held  apart  and  together  by  their 
forces,  and  at  distances  compared  with  which  the  diameters 
of  the  atoms  themselves  are  very  small.  But  from  this 
standpoint  the  need  of  viewing  the  atoms  as  corpuscles,  or 
minified  matter,  disappears  entirely.  The  phenomenal  so- 
lidity of  bodies,  which  is  the  only  solidity  of  which  we  have 
any  knowledge,  is  no  longer  the  integral  of  the  solidities  of 
the  atoms,  but  is  purely  a  product  of  a  certain  balance  of 
attractive  and  repulsive  forces  between  the  elements,  and 
does  not  represent  any  property  of  the  elements  themselves. 
If  we  allow  that  the  elements  have  an  absolute  form  and  so- 
lidity, we  have  also  to  allow  that  they  never  come  into  play  in 
accounting  for  the  properties  of  body ;  and  that  these  prop- 
erties are  all  the  outcome  of  a  dynamism  which  in  itself  is 
totally  unlike  the  properties  which  it  founds.  Each  element 
excludes  others  from  its  own  space  not  by  a  passive  solidity, 
but  by  an  active  repulsion.  A  repulsion  between  the  sur- 
face of  bodies  which  produces  the  effect  of  solidity  can  be 
shown  by  experiment.  When  one  plate  of  glass  is  laid 
upon  another  it  is  found  that  there  is  no  actual  contact,  and 
that  an  extremely  great  pressure  is  needed  to  bring  them 
closer  together.  Indeed,  solidity  considered  simply  as  space- 
filling could  offer  no  resistance  at  all  to  the  entrance  of  other 
bodies  into  the  same  place.  If  there  were  things  between 
which  no  relation  of  repulsion  existed,  there  is  no  assignable 
reason  why  they  should  not  absolutely  penetrate ;  and  some 
speculators  have  suggested  that  chemical  union  may  be  of 
this  sort.  The  mistake  of  this  notion  does  not  lie  in  a  meta- 
physical impossibility,  but  in  its  inadequacy  to  the  facts, 
pre-eminently  those  of  isomerism.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
solid  without  cohesive  forces  could  not  exist.  For  in  every 
such  solid  it  would  be  possible  to  distinguish  different  parts ; 
and  the  only  reason  for  the  coherence  of  these  parts  must 
be  found  in  cohesive  forces  between  these  parts.  Hence, 


280  METAPHYSICS. 

in  any  case,  solidity  must  be  second  and  not  first.  The 
facts,  then,  are  (1)  that  in  determining  the  properties  and 
form  of  bodies  we  are  referred  not  to  similar  properties  and 
forms  of  the  elements,  but  to  their  dynamic  relations  where- 
by they  found  the  properties  and  forms  of  bodies ;  and  (2) 
that  solidity,  by  its  very  nature,  must  be  a  product  and  not 
an  original  and  changeless  attribute.  No  atom  can  be  re- 
garded as  having  an  absolute  and  changeless  extension,  but 
rather  by  its  own  energy  it  asserts  for  itself  a  certain  posi- 
tion and  volume,  from  which  only  a  greater  power  can 
drive  it.  These  simple  facts  serve  to  show  that  the  chief 
qualities  of  bodies,  which  we  may  sum  up  under  the  term 
materiality,  are  products  of  the  interactions  of  the  elements, 
and  not  properties  of  the  elements  themselves. 

The  chief  reason  which  remains  for  the  corpuscular  con- 
ception is  that  which  originally  produced  it.  This  is  not  its 
scientific  value,  but  its  picturability.  The  atom  as  a  dynam- 
ic element,  or  a  centre  of  force,  is  as  unpicturable  as  a  soul. 
The  imagination,  therefore,  is  relieved  if  allowed  to  give  it 
an  extremely  small  but  fixed  form  and  volume.  It  seems 
easy  then  to  tell  what  it  is  and  where  it  is;  while  the  dy- 
namic conception  is  comparatively  hard  to  realize;  and 
withal  the  dynamic  view  seems  so  to  dematerialize  matter 
as  to  be  scarcely  distinguishable  from  idealism.  These  con- 
siderations more  than  anything  else  have  kept  the  corpuscu- 
lar conception  from,  universal  rejection.  The  general  ten- 
dency of  physics  is  towards  the  dynamic  conception  of  the 
atom ;  but  in  sluggish  minds  the  old  view  maintains  a  more 
or  less  undisturbed  existence.  The  tendency  towards  dyn- 
amism is  partly  due  to  the  general  unwillingness  to  ex- 
plain the  same  by  the  same,  which  is  the  case  with  the  cor- 
puscular theory ;  and  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  latter 
theory  is  involved  in  the  gravest  metaphysical  difficulties. 
If  the  atom  be  real  it  must  be  an  agent,  and  its  properties 
must  depend  upon  its  agency.  It  must  also  be  a  unit.  But 
in  a  previous  chapter  we  have  seen  that  the  extended  can- 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  281 

not  be  a  unit.  An  extended  body  is  possible  only  as  the- 
parts  cohere,  and  this,  again,  is  possible  only  as  they  are  con- 
nected by  a  system  of  attractive  forces.  In  such  a  case,  the 
atom  appears  as  a  system  of  attracting  and  repelling  points, 
each  of  which  is  the  centre  of  forces  distinct  from  those  of 
all  the  rest ;  and  thus  we  should  be  led  directly  to  the  con- 
ception of  centres  of  force.  Possibly  we  might  retain  the 
indivisibility  of  the  atom  in  such  a  case,  but  only  by  mak- 
ing the  attractions  greater  than  any  possible  dividing  force. 
But  even  this  very  questionable  notion  would  not  save  the 
unity  of  the  atom.  It  would  have  a  unitedness  rather  than 
a  unity.  Only  that  is  a  unit  whose  states  are  states  of  the  \ 
entire  being.  Any  conception  of  states  which  are  states  of 
parts  only  and  not  of  the  whole,  as  when  atoms  are  con- 
ceived as  having  opposite  forces  at  opposite  ends,  cancels 
the  unity  and  with  it  the  reality.  But  if  matter  be  truly 
discrete  it  must  be  composed  of  true  units.  The  notion  of 
a  composite  without  component  units  is  like  that  of  number 
without  a  unit.  Nor  does  it  avail  to  say  that  the  units  of 
composition  are  themselves  composite ;  for  this  only  post- 
pones the  problem  without  solving  it.  This  reply  may  be 
allowed  to  a  physicist  or  chemist  who  is  pursuing  only  prac- 
tical ends  and  does  not  wish  to  be  bothered  with  metaphys- 
ical difficulties;  and,  indeed,  it  may  be  possible  that  the 
units  of  the  physicist  and  chemist  are  only  relatively  such. 
We  may  conceive  different  orders  of  units,  each  of  which 
may  be  the  unit  in  a  certain  field ;  but  none  the  less  is  it 
necessary  from  a  theoretical  standpoint  to  admit  somewhere, 
as  the  reality  of  the  whole,  true  units  of  being.  But  so  long 
as  a  passive  and  extended  solidity  is  viewed  as  an  attribute 
of  the  elements,  their  unity  cannot  be  maintained.  We 
conclude,  then,  that  the  corpuscular  conception,  even  in  its 
modern  form,  must  be  abandoned  (1)  as  unnecessary,  and 
(2)  as  hostile  to  the  unity,  and  hence  to  the  reality  of  the 
atom  itself.  Either  we  must  regard  the  atom  as  only  a  con- 
venient practical  fiction,  or  else  we  must  view  it  as  a  true 


282  METAPHYSICS. 

agent,  which,  by  its  activity,  founds  without  having  the 
properties  of  phenomenal  matter. 

Is,  then,  the  atom  an  nnextended  force-centre  ?  This  is 
not  a  necessary  conclusion  from  the  preceding  argument. 
We  need  not  refer  to  the  view  that  things  are  not  in  space 
to  find  a  third  possibility.  If  we  allow  that  the  atom  fills 
space,  it  is  still  possible  to  regard  the  filling  as  either  static 
or  dynamic.  The  former  is  untenable  for  the  reasons  given. 
The  latter  makes  space-filling  not  a  passive  attribute  of  an 
inactive  thing,  but  a  result  of  atomic  energy.  By  its  re- 
pulsive force  an  atom  is  able  to  assert  for  itself  a  position 
and  a  volume  in  space ;  but  this  volume  is  no  constant  quan- 
tity, but  varies  with  the  intensity  of  the  attack  and  the  re- 
sistance. It  is  a  product  or  an  effect  rather  than  an  attribute. 
On  this  view  the  volume  of  an  atom  would  be  that  space 
from  which  it  excludes  all  others  at  any  given  moment. 
But  if  we  accept  this  view,  it  would  be  necessary  further  to 
hold  that  within  the  space  thus  filled  there  is  no  distinction 
of  parts,  but  that  the  atom  must  be  all  in  every  part.  Its 
space-filling  would  not  be  the  filling-out  of  a  volume  with  a 
corresponding  bulk,  but  it  would  be  the  presence  of  the  en- 
tire atom  in  every  point  of  the  spatial  volume.  Without  this 
assumption  we  should  come  into  hopeless  conflict  with  the 
unity  of  the  atom.  On  the  current  theory  of  space  we  must 
either  make  the  atom  omnipresent  in  the  little  space  to 
which  its  exclusive  activity  extends,  or  we  must  locate  it  at 
the  geometric  point  at  which  the  lines  of  force  cross.  The 
former  view  would  modify  some  of 'our  traditional  concep- 
tions of  matter.  In  particular,  incompressibility  would  no 
longer  be  a  passive  or  an  absolute  attribute,  and  porosity  and 
the  void  might  be  dispensed  with.  All  of  these  are  founded 
on  the  corpuscular  conception,  and  are  quite  unnecessary  on 
the  theory  in  question.  Even  the  theory  which  makes  the 
atoms  centres  of  force  does  not  leave  the  space  between  ab- 
solutely void,  for  each  atom  extends  its  influence  into  that 
space  so  as  to  prevent  entrance  or  passage.  In  this  sense 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  283 

the  void  disappears  from  the  dynamic  view.  Some  physicists 
have  declared  that  the  void  between  the  atoms  are  as  neces- 
sary to  the  theory  as  the  atoms  themselves ;  but  this  is  true 
only  for  the  corpuscular  theory.  It  has  also  been  objected 
that  unextended  atoms  could  never  produce  an  extended 
body ;  but  this  overlooks  the  fact  (1)  that  in  any  case  the 
actual  extension  of  body  is  due  not  to  the  extension  of  the 
elements,  but  to  their  repulsive  forces,  and  (2)  the  unextended 
atom  is  assumed  to  have  repulsive  power  extending  beyond 
its  own  position.  Upon  our  own  view,  as  developed  in  the 
ontology,  the  atoms,  if  real,  must  be  purely  dynamic.  The 
results  reached  in  the  discussion  of  space  compel  us  further 
to  deny  that  the  atoms,  if  real,  are  in  space.  Their  inter- 
relations are  dynamic  only,  but  are  such  that  bodies  appear 
as  having  position  and  volume  in  space.  In  fact,  the  atoms 
are  non- spatial,  and  the  question  as  to  their  extension  or 
non-extension  disappears.  It  is  needless  to  refer  to  the  doc- 
trine of  vortex-rings,  as  that  allows  the  atomic  necessity  and 
does  not  escape  the  atom  itself.  It  makes  the  proximate 
units  of  the  physicist  vortex-rings  in  a  perfect  fluid,  and  de- 
duces many  interesting  conclusions.  But  it  fails  to  inquire 
into  the  nature  of  that  perfect  fluid,  and  so  merely  postpones 
the  problem.  But  that  fluid  itself  must  have  an  atomic  con- 
stitution to  admit  of  the  production  of  such  vortex-rings  as 
are  imagined.  Without  this  assumption,  vortex-rings  in  pure 
space,  or  the  rotation  of  parts  of  space,  would  be  just  as  pos- 
sible as  vortex-rings  in  this  fluid.  While,  then,  we  might  by 
this  theory  explain  the  proximate  units  of  physics,  we  should 
in  no  way  escape  the  need  of  admitting  ultimate  units  of 
being,  or  of  admitting  that  the  entire  theory  is  only  a  formal 
fiction. 

Since  the  earliest  times  a  belief  in  the  transmutation  of 
matter  has  haunted  the  human  mind.  Are  the  atoms,  then, 
all  of  a  kind  ?  The  first  effect  of  modern  chemistry  was  to 
discredit  such  a  notion.  Over  sixty  classes  of  elements  were 
discovered,  none  of  which  could  be  resolved  into  anything 


284  METAPHYSICS. 

else ;  and  this  fact  seemed  to  put  an  end  to  all  thought  of 
transmutation.  At  the  same  time  this  fact  did  not  prove 
that  these  classes  were  indivisible,  but  only  that  they  are 
undivided.  Moreover,  some  of  these  classes  fall  into  groups, 
the  members  of  which  are  closely  allied  in  many  of  their 
properties ;  and  this  fact  suggests  some  fundamental  connec- 
tion. The  facts  of  isomerism  and  allotropism  also  are  not 
without  significance  as  showing  how  the  same  substance  can 
have  very  different  properties.  The  still  more  common  fact 
that  a  slight  change  in  the  numerical  ratio  of  the  same  ele- 
ments results  in  the  profoundest  change  of  qualities  has  a 
similar  bearing.  Hence  there  has  always  been  a  kind  of 
speculative  unrest  at  this  point ;  and  the  present  mania  for 
evolution,  which  refuses  to  accept  anything  as  ready-made, 
has  increased  the  dissatisfaction.  But  apart  from  the  mania, 
the  known  facts  make  the  thought  possible,  that  the  chem- 
ical classes  are  really  varying  systems  of  a  common  unit. 
This  notion  is  possible ;  but  if  it  were  established  as  fact, 
the  speculative  advantage  would  be  very  small.  The  zeal 
with  which  at  present  experiments  are  made  in  this  direc- 
tion rests  on  several  false  assumptions.  It  is  assumed  (1) 
that  the  system  would  be  more  unitary  if  such  a  view  were 
established,  but  this  is  a  palpable  mistake.  Unity  and  all- 
alikeness  are  widely  distinct  notions.  The  true  unity  of  the 
system  consists  in  the  unity  of  plan  and  principle,  and  not  in 
the  sameness  of  material.  It  is  assumed  (2)  that  such  a  view 
would  greatly  simplify  the  system ;  but  this,  too,  is  a  mis- 
take. To  begin  with,  it  would  make  the  actual  constancy 
of  the  chemical  classes  a  great  mystery,  and  their  existence 
would  be  a  greater  still.  That  a  given  molecule  should  be 
as  stable  as  the  chemical  elements,  unless  shut  up  by  its 
nature  to  that  combination,  is  highly  improbable ;  but  that 
a  given  unit  should  unite  to  form  only  a  few  classes  whose 
members  are  exactly  alike,  is  more  astonishing  still.  To  ac- 
count for  the  fact,  we  should  have  to  posit  in  the  atoms  a 
peculiar  affinity  for  a  few,  and  only  a  few,  classes ;  and  this 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  285 

affinity  must  be  made  very  strong  to  account  for  the  stability 
through  all  the  changes  of  matter.  But  such  a  supposition 
is  not  much  simpler  than  the  other,  that  the  elements  are 
qualitatively  different.  The  only  change  from  the  current 
view  would  be  in  allowing  the  possibility  that  the  same  units 
might  pass  from  class  to  class  under  the  appropriate  circum- 
stances, whatever  they  might  be.  It  must  likewise  be  point- 
ed out  that  every  theory  which  attempts  to  deduce  all  qual- 
itative difference  from  quantitative  gives  the  spectator  very 
great  significance;  for  in  such  theories  the  world  of  qualita- 
tive distinctions  must  be  referred  to  the  observing  mind. 

The  question  whether  the  atoms  are  not  all  multiples  of 
a  common  unit  is  quite  different  from  another — namely, 
whether  the  atoms  are  not  forms  of  a  common  substance. 
The  attempts  to  answer  this  question  in  the  affirmative  are 
numberless,  but  they  all  rest  upon  a  misleading  imagina- 
tion. In  our  own  experience,  we  employ  material  for  mak- 
ing many  things,  and  the  same  stuff  can  be  built  into  many 
forms.  Thus  the  fancy  arises  that,  perhaps,  the  atoms  are 
little  bits  of  a  common  substance.  But  this  notion  is  a  re- 
turn to  the  exploded  whim  of  pure  being.  Substance,  we 
have  seen,  is  not  a  stuff,  but  an  indivisible  agent.  Hence 
it  is  impossible  to  view  the  atoms  as  built  out  of  any  pre- 
existing non-atomic  stuff.  Either  we  must  view  the  atoms 
as  strict  units,  or  we  must  view  them  as  elemental  forms  of 
activity  on  the  part  of  the  basal  reality.  In  discussing  the 
nature  of  the  absolute,  we  pointed  out  the  impossibility  of 
deducing  the  atoms,  by  any  apriori  necessity,  from  the  abso- 
lute. The  necessary  unity  of  every  true  agent,  also,  makes 
it  impossible  to  view  them  as  differentiations  of  the  abso- 
lute. The  one  cannot  split  into  the  many,  but  the  many, 
if  real,  must  be  viewed  as  created.  Considered  as  proper 
agents,  the  atoms  are  no  subjects  of  evolution,  except  as 
change  is  identified  with  evolution.  The  substantial  can- 
not be  evolved  as  to  its  existence.  Considered  as  elemen- 
tary forms  of  the  activity  of  the  infinite,  they  admit  of  evo- 


286  METAPHYSICS. 

lution  in  the  sense  that  these  forms  may  be  conceived  as 
taking  on  new  features  from  time  to  time,  according  to  the 
demands  which  the  system  makes  upon  them.  Indeed,  this 
conception  would  be  necessary  on  this  view.  When  a  form 
of  activity  changes,  it  necessarily  becomes  something  else. 
The  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  reduce  matter  to  a 
product  of  attractive  and  repulsive  forces  come  to  about 
the  same  thing.  This  thought  is  formally  incomplete,  as  it 
gives  no  hint  of  the  subject  of  these  forces,  or  of  what  at- 
tracts and  repels.  Until  this  is  done,  the  conception  is  emp- 
ty of  meaning.  This  subject,  if  not  the  elements  them- 
selves, must  be  something  back  of  them,  and  thus  the  ele- 
ments appear  as  unsubstantial  forms  of  an  activity  not  their 
own. 

Leaving,  for  the  present,  the  question  whether  the  atoms 
are  proper  agents  or  only  forms  of  the  agency  of  the  abso- 
lute, we  pass  to  consider  the  forces  of  the  atoms.  In  the 
chapter  on  being,  we  pointed  out  that  force,  as  commonly 
conceived,  as  inhering  in  things,  is  purely  an  abstraction 
from  certain  forms  of  activity;  we  have  now  to  attempt 
some  nearer  determination.  The  common  conception  is,  that 
separate  forces  reside  in  the  thing,  and  that  the  thing  is  the 
home  or  seat  of  the  forces.  But  this  view  rests  on  the  no- 
tion of  pure  being  and  on  a  hypostasis  of  force.  The  result 
is  an  impossible  dualism,  in  which  the  being  does  not  ex- 
plain the  force,  and  yet  the  force  is  nothing  apart  from  the 
being.  To  this  absurdity  we  are  led  by  mistaking  the  dis- 
tinctions of  language  for  metaphysical  facts.  Scarcely  bet- 
ter is  the  definition  of  force  as  the  unknown  cause  of  phe- 
nomena. This  makes  force  at  once  a  thing,  for  only  things 
can  be  causes;  and  it  also  dispenses  with  everything  but 
force,  for  the  sole  aim  of  speculation  is,  to  find  the  causes 
of  phenomena.  But  this  view  at  once  proceeds  to  stultify 
itself  by  next  providing  something  else,  which,  in  some  mys- 
terious way,  possesses,  or  supports,  or  uses,  the  force.  The 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  287 

fact,  however,  is,  that  the  elements  are  so  related  to  one  an- 
other that,  when  certain  conditions  are  fulfilled,  they  mani- 
fest peculiar  activities,  which  activities,  however,  are  always 
the  activities  of  the  things  themselves,  and  not  of  some  in- 
herent forces.  Of  course,  they  could  not  act  as  they  do  if 
they  were  not  what  they  are;  but  the  power  to  do  what 
they  do  is  developed  in  the  moment  of  the  action.  We 
must  here  refer  to  our  general  conception  of  the  system  as 
composed  of  a  set  of  things  which  mutually  change  as  the 
plan  of  the  system  requires,  so  that  each  thing  is  what  it  is, 
and  does  what  it  does,  because  all  the  rest  are  what  they 
are,  and  do  what  they  do.  In  such  a  case,  the  being  of  ev- 
erything changes  from  moment  to  moment,  and  its  possibil- 
ities vary  with  it ;  indeed,  its  possibilities  and  its  actualities 
are  strictly  identical.  We  do  not  conceive  being,  then,  as 
having  inherent  forces,  but  as  passing  from  one  form  of 
manifestation  to  another  as  its  circumstances  vary.  We 
should  say,  then,  that  a  new  activity  does  not  spring  from 
an  inherent  power  coiled  up  within  it,  but  from  a  power 
acquired  in  the  moment  of  manifestation.  We  may  illus- 
trate this  by  the  intensity  of  attraction  between  two  ele- 
ments. At  each  new  distance  they  attract  with  new  inten- 
sities. These  were  not  something  in  the  thing,  nor  some- 
thing put  in  the  thing ;  they  are  developed  at  every  point. 
Any  given  intensity  represents  the  energy  of  action  which 
the  general  relation  between  the  two  calls  for  at  any  given 
point.  In  the  same  manner,  the  different  forces  of  things, 
as  well  as  the  different  intensities  of  the  same  force,  are  ac- 
quired at  the  time  of  action,  and  represent  only  the  forms 
of  action  which  the  nature  of  the  system  calls  for  in  their 
special  relations.  But,  since  these  activities  fall  into  certain 
classes,  we  abstract  a  specific  cause,  which  is  not  merely  the 
thing,  but  some  cause  in  the  thing.  This  is  a  confusion  of 
cause  with  ground.  The  cause  of  an  act  is  the  agent  itself. 
The  ground  of  the  act  is  that  peculiarity  of  nature  which, 
under  the  fitting  conditions,  makes  it  the  cause  of  that  act, 


288  METAPHYSICS. 

and  not  of  some  other.  "We  may  say,  then,  that  a  thing  is 
perpetually  acquiring  new  forces  and  losing  others,  according 
as  its  relations  change.  The  conditions  of  some  of  these 
manifestations  may  always  be  fulfilled,  as  in  the  case  of 
gravitation.  The  conditions  of  some  others  may  be  ful- 
filled only  here  and  there,  and  now  and  then.  Such  are  the 
chemical,  magnetic,  and  electric  manifestations.  Coexist- 
ence in  the  infinite  seems  enough  to  secure  the  first  mani- 
festation ;  the  conditions  of  the  others  are  far  more  com- 
plex. When  we  know  the  order  of  their  appearance,  we 
have  their  law  to  a  certain  extent.  When,  in  addition,  we 
know  the  law  of  their  variation,  which,  in  physical  forces, 
is  some  function  of  the  space  between  the  interacting  bod- 
ies, then  we  have  a  formula  which  can  be  used  for  mathe- 
matical deduction.  It  is  this  fact  which  constitutes  the 
fruitfulness  of  the  law  of  gravitation  compared  with  the 
law  of  affinity  or  of  cohesion.  The  former  law  admits  of 
exact  mathematical  expression,  and  its  conditions  are  sim- 
ple; in  particular,  the  mass  admits  of  being  treated  as  a 
unit  located  in  a  point.  The  problem  of  three  bodies  fails 
to  give  a  hint  of  the  unmanageable  complexity  of  astronom- 
ical problems  which  would  result  if  this  were  not  the  case. 
But  the  law  and  the  circumstances  being  simple,  and  admit- 
ting of  mathematical  statement,  they  admit  of  deductive  cal- 
culation. In  the  case  of  affinity,  the  circumstances  are  not 
so  simple,  and  the  law  admits  of  no  mathematical  formu- 
lation, and  here  we  are  practically  restricted  to  observation. 
But,  it  will  be  asked,  how  can  a  thing  acquire  new  pow- 
ers? And  how  can  we,  with  due  regard  to  the  indestructi- 
bility of  force,  speak  of  new  forces  springing  up  in  things 
in  new  circumstances  ?  To  the  first  question  we  answer  by 
confessing  ignorance.  How  two  elements  which,  at  a  given 
distance,  attract  with  a  certain  intensity,  should  attract,  at 
half  the  distance,  with  a  fourfold  intensity,  no  one  knows, 
and  yet  we  have  to  admit  the  fact.  The  attempt  to  repre- 
sent it  as  due  to  the  nature  of  space,  whereby  an  outstream- 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  289 

ing  ether  must  vary  in  amount  on  any  given  surface  in- 
versely as  the  square  of  the  distance  from  the  centre  is 
purely  fanciful.     The  simple  fact  is,  that  the  intensities  of 
force  vary  with  the  space  across  which  it  acts,  but  no  one 
has  the  least  insight  into  the  fact.     And  what  is  thus  true 
of  varying  intensities  is  equally  true  of  qualitative  variation. 
They  depend  on  the  inter-relations  of  things,  and  when  not 
manifested,  are  not  existent.     The  other  question,  about  the 
indestructibility  of  force,  is  an  attempt  to  refer  to  the  con- 
servation of  energy.     The  latter  doctrine,  however,  assumes 
the  laws  of  force  and  the  mode  of  its  variation,  without  any 
attempt  to  deduce  them.      Our  conclusion,  then,  is,  that  \ 
force,  as  used  in  physical  science,  is  only  an  abstraction    ) 
from  the  various  forms  of  atomic  activity,  and  the  laws  of    ! 
force  are  only  the  formulas  which  express  the  conditions  of  / 
these  forms  of  activity,  and  sometimes  the  rate  of  their  va-y 
riation. 

From  this  standpoint  we  shall  escape  many  difficulties 
which  have  infested  the  metaphysics  of  physics.  All  those 
difficulties  connected  with  the  inherence  of  force  in  the 
forceless,  which  arise  when  matter  and  force  are  held  apart 
in  mistaken  abstraction,  disappear  of  themselves.  Force  in 
itself  is  nothing ;  passive  matter,  in  itself,  is  also  nothing. 
The  reality  in  this  case,  if  anything,  is  a  complex  of  agents 
in  interaction ;  and  matter  and  force,  as  commonly  con- 
ceived, are  but  two  unreal  abstractions,  which  arise  from 
separating  the  being  and  the  activity.  Many  difficulties 
have  also  arisen  from  the  fact  that  the  same  element  has  at 
the  same  time  attractive  and  repulsive  forces.  ~No  one,  it 
is  said,  can  properly  conceive  that  the  same  atom,  at  the 
same  time,  attracts  and  repels  another.  To  relieve  this  op- 
position, great  efforts  have  been  made  to  deduce  attraction 
from  repulsion,  or  repulsion  from  attraction,  as  a  differen- 
tial result,  but  without  success.  Prof.  Bayma,  in  his  "  Molec- 
ular Mechanics,"  has  sought  to  escape  what  he  regards  as 
an  outright  contradiction,  by  dividing  the  elements  into  two 
19 


290  METAPHYSICS. 

classes,  one  of  which  is  always  and  only  attractive,  while  the 
other  is  always  and  only  repulsive.  The  same  attempt  has 
been  made  in  the  doctrine  which  makes  the  ether-atoms  re- 
pulsive and  the  ponderable  atoms  attractive ;  but  this  view 
is  less  consistent  than  the  previous  one,  as  it  assumes,  also, 
an  attraction  between  the  ponderable  and  imponderable  at- 
oms. In  addition  to  this  attraction,  the  facts  of  reflection 
in  light  and  heat  demand  also  a  repulsion ;  and  thus  we  are 
back  in  the  old  trouble.  But,  even  among  the  attractive 
forces  themselves,  it  is  impossible  to  reach  unity.  Many 
physicists,  distressed  by  the  necessity  of  assuming  a  new 
force,  with  a  new  law  for  every  peculiar  set  of  phenomena, 
have  sought  to  make  at  least  all  phenomena  of  attraction 
depend  on  one  and  the  same  law.  And  since,  when  we  first 
make  the  acquaintance  of  the  elements,  they  are,  at  least  in 
our  theories,  under  the  influence  of  gravitation  only,  gravity 
has  generally  been  chosen  as  the  ultimate  and  only  force, 
though  others  have  not  been  without  advocates.  Saint- 
Simon  and  Fourier  claimed  to  trace  the  law  of  gravity  even 
into  social  relations ;  and  there  has  been  a  very  general  de- 
mand among  popular  speculators  that  we  regard  affinity  and 
the  other  molecular  forces  as  transformed  gravity.  But 
none  of  these  attempts  have  succeeded,  and  it  is  still  neces- 
sary to  assume  new  and  peculiar  molecular  forces  to  explain 
the  facts ;  nor  is  it  likely  that  it  will  ever  be  otherwise.  At 
the  same  time,  it  must  be  allowed  that,  on  the  popular  view 
of  inherent  forces,  this  view  cancels  the  unity  of  the  atom, 
and  brings  the  several  laws  of  force  into  very  uneasy  rela- 
tions. 

These  difficulties  also  disappear  from  our  point  of  view. 
If  the  forces  were  absolute  properties  of  the  elements,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  save  the  unity,  and  hence  the  real- 
ity, of  the  atom.  But  the  forces  of  whatever  kind  are  prop- 
erties of  the  elements  only  in  mutual  relations,  and  are  but 
expressions  of  those  relations.  If  this  be  so,  then  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  the  relation  between  A  and  B  should  call  for 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  291 

attraction,  while  that  between  A  and  C  should  call  for  repul- 
sion ;  just  as  the  same  person  may  be  attractive  to  some  and 
repulsive  to  others.  In  such  a  case  the  same  thing  would 
attract  and  repel,  but  the  objects  would  be  different.  In 
this  sense  there  is  no  contradiction  in  a  thing's  having  at- 
tractive and  repulsive  forces  at  the  same  time.  But  when 
the  interaction  is  between  two  elements  only,  the  relation 
between  them  cannot  at  the  same  time  call  for  attraction 
and  repulsion.  The  notion  that  it  can  rests  on  the  mistaken 
fancy  that  a  thing  is  the  seat  of  mutually  independent 
forces,  all  of  which  work  on  their  own  account.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  the  analogy  of  the  magnet  may  occur  to  us,  and 
we  may  fancy  that  the  atom  might  attract  with  one  pole 
and  repel  with  the  other.  But  this  notion  would  destroy 
the  unity  of  the  atom,  and  force  us  to  abandon  it  altogether. 
But  the  question  arises,  Do  not  the  laws  of  attraction  and 
repulsion  themselves  call  for  just  this  contradictory  notion  ? 
They  certainly  would  if  they  were  taken  absolutely ;  but 
the  question  suggests  that  the  laws  themselves  are  but  re- 
sults of  a  more  general  law,  and  are  valid  only  within  cer- 
tain limits.  If  it  be  absurd  to  speak  of  an  element  as  at 
once  attracting  and  repelling  another,  then  we  must  look 
upon  both  attraction  and  repulsion  as  the  opposite  manifes- 
tations at  different  points  of  a  place-determining  power.  In 
that  case  the  elements  would  attract  and  repel  not  absolutely 
and  always,  but  now  one  and  now  the  other,  according  to 
the  demands  which  the  system  makes  upon  them,  or  accord- 
ing to  the  law  for  their  total  activity  which  the  nature  of 
the  whole  prescribes.  The  same  conception,  that  the  ele- 
ments have  not  two  coexistent  forces  of  attraction  and  re- 
pulsion, emerges  from  the  conclusions  from  the  laws  them- 
selves when  taken  absolutely.  The  law  of  gravitation  gives 
an  infinite  attraction  for  elements  in  contact.  The  laws  of 
repulsion  give  an  infinite  repulsion  in  the  same  case.  This 
result  is  not  evaded  by  bringing  in  the  consideration  that 
the  attraction  varies  also  as  the  mass,  for  the  notion  of  mass 


292  METAPHYSICS. 

Las  no  application  to  the  unit.  But  a  result  of  this  kind  is 
at  least  highly  paradoxical  in  that  it  endows  every  atom 
with  a  possibility  of  infinite  attraction  and  repulsion — a  no- 
tion which  it  is  very  hard  to  bring  into  harmony  with  the 
infinitesimal  character  of  the  atom.  We  escape  these  bizarre 
results  by  recognizing  that  the  original  force  of  matter  is  a 
place-determining  one,  which  manifests  itself  now  as  attrac- 
tion and  now  as  repulsion,  according  to  the  demands  of  the 
whole.  The  mathematical  formulas  for  attraction  and  re- 
pulsion, however,  show  no  trace  of  the  necessary  limita- 
tions, and  hence  we  may  infer  anything  whatever  which 
the  formulas  contain.  Physical  science  is  full  of  such  ab- 
stractions. The  first  law  of  motion,  and  the  separate  inde- 
pendent forces  in  the  atom  are  illustrations.  These  conclu- 
sions from  the  formulas  of  attraction  and  repulsion  are  like 
those  from  certain  devices  in  mechanics,  as  where  zero  at 
the  end  of  an  infinite  lever  arm  is  shown  to  be  able  to  sup- 
port an  infinite  weight  at  the  fulcrum.  All  such  conclu- 
sions are  the  logical  results  of  giving  assumptions  an  exten- 
sion beyond  their  original  limitations.  If,  now,  we  wish  to 
express  the  true  law  of  the  place-determining  force  of  mat- 
ter, it  cannot  be  by  double  formulas  of  attraction  and  repul- 
sion, both  of  which  give  paradoxical  results  as  their  limiting 
values,  but  by  some  formula,  like  that  of  Boscovich,  which 
shall  pass  from  attraction  to  repulsion  according  to  the  val- 
ues of  the  distance.  To  this  it  has  been  objected  that  a 
simple  variation  of  space  cannot  be  the  ground  for  a  change 
in  the  quality  of  the  force ;  but  if  space  can  affect  action  in 
any  way,  it  might  as  well  act  qualitatively  as  quantitatively. 
This  result  raises  the  further  question,  why  force  should 
vary  with  the  space  at  all.  On  the  theory  which  regards 
space  as  real  and  things  as  in  it,  this  question  is  quite  un- 
answerable. More  or  less  of  empty  space  does  not  seem, 
upon  reflection,  to  contain  the  least  ground  for  the  variation 
of  force.  The  idea  attributes  a  kind  of  resistance  to  space, 
which  must  be  overcome  before  the  object  can  be  reached. 


MATTER  AND  FOKCE.  293 

And  since,  on  the  most  realistic  view,  space  does  nothing, 
the  existence  of  a  thing  in  this  or  that  point  in  space  is  no 
ground  for  change  in  the  thing  itself.  Space-position,  there- 
fore, on  any  theory  must  be  viewed  not  as  a  cause  but  an 
effect ;  it  is  the  result  of  the  interactions  of  things  whereby 
they  prescribe  to  one  another  the  position  they  shall  have 
in  real  or  apparent  space.  But  this  place-determining  power 
is  a  purely  metaphysical  one ;  it  is  not  determined  by  posi- 
tion, but  determines  position.  Its  own  determining  ground 
must  be  sought  for  in  the  idea,  or  nature,  of  the  whole, 
which  is  the  ultimate  source  of  all  law  and  order.  We  can- 
not take  any  other  view  without  either  reasoning  in  a  circle 
or  making  space  an  active  thing.  Hence  it  follows,  as  we 
have  seen  in  discussing  the  nature  of  the  infinite,  that  the 
whole  cannot  be  construed  as  the  result  of  its  parts,  but  the 
parts  can  be  understood  only  from  the  side  of  the  whole. 
The  parts  are  not  independent  seats  of  independent  forces 
which  by  combination  generate  an  apparent  whole ;  but  the 
parts  have  their  existence  and  their  properties,  or  forces, 
only  as  demanded  by  the  meaning  or  nature  of  the  whole. 
But  though  space  itself  can  never  be  regarded  as  the  real 
ground  of  force-variation,  it  may  be  treated  as  its  measure 
in  calculation,  because  the  changing  space-relations  are  ac- 
curate exponents  of  the  changing  metaphysical  relations. 
Hence  we  can  deal  with  the  former  with  as  much  certainty 
as  if  they  were  the  latter. 

Nevertheless,  the  fancy  is  entertained  by  many  that  empty 
space  itself  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  force- variation.  Our 
physical  experience  teaches  us  that  we  can  act  directly  only 
on  things  within  reach ;  and  even  then  we  must  not  be  at 
arm's  length.  This  most  vulgar  fact  seems  to  be  at  the  bot- 
tom of  our  notion  that  force  must  vary  with  space.  This 
fact  is  further  aided  by  an  alleged  explanation  drawn  from 
the  geometrical  nature  of  space  itself ;  and  the  result  is  a 
claim  that  all  central  forces  must  necessarily  vary  as  the  in- 
verse square  of  the  distance.  The  explanation  and  the  claim 


294  METAPHYSICS. 

are  totally  baseless.  They  are  founded  on  the  notion  that 
force  is  something  streaming  out  from  the  element  as  a 
kind  of  aura  flowing  from  a  centre.  If  this  view  were  al- 
lowed, there  would  be  a  certain  explanation  both  of  the 
diminution  of  force  with  the  space  and  of  the  law  of  the  in- 
verse square.  For  as  the  surface  of  a  sphere  varies  as  the 
square  of  the  radius,  it  follows  that  with  twice  the  radius 
the  surface  would  be  four  times  as  great.  Hence  the  out- 
flowing aura  would  be  distributed  over  a  fourfold  surface, 
and  hence,  again,  it  would  only  be  one  fourth  as  intense  on 
the  unit  of  surface.  But  we  are  freed  from  this  notion, 
which  is  plainly  only  a  product  of  the  imagination.  Noth- 
ing streams  out  from  being ;  and  force  is  only  an  abstrac- 
tion from  a  thing's  activity,  and  never  a  thing  itself.  But 
the  imagination  always  wants  a  bridge  on  which  to  cross; 
and  hence  it  forms  the  notion  of  a  passing  and  repassing 
thing,  and  thus  exchanges  the  notion  of  force  acting  at  a 
distance  for  the  old  view  of  action  by  impact.  But  if  the 
passing  force  be  a  real  something,  we  must  know  where  it 
comes  from,  and  how  the  atom  can  forever  generate  this 
reality  so  as  to  fill  space  with  it.  If  the  force  be  only  an 
influence,  then  we  have  simply  a  figure  of  speech  as  the 
cause  of  effects.  But  if  the  force  were  allowed  to  be  a  real 
something,  which  passes  from  thing  to  thing  and  produces 
effects,  our  difficulties  would  be  greater  than  ever.  An  out- 
going ether  would  not  explain  attraction ;  and  if  it  did,  it 
ought  to  be  as  attractive  on  the  farther  as  on  the  nearer  side 
of  the  body  to  be  moved.  No  body  cuts  off  the  influence 
of  gravitation  by  interposition ;  and  hence  the  force  which 
reaching  the  earth  from  the  sun  attracts  it  towards  the  sun, 
forthwith  emerges  on  the  other  side,  and  ought  to  attract  it 
from  the  sun.  There  seems  also  to  be  no  reason  why  the 
force  should  attract  in  the  line  of  its  own  motion  rather 
than  in  any  other.  This  theory  does  not  conceive  force  as 
a  tense  cord,  but  as  a  moving  something ;  and  hence  when 
it  reaches  a  body  and  causes  motion,  that  motion  might  be 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  295 

in  any  direction.  Some  have  sought  to  escape  these  whim- 
sical difficulties  by  the  additional  fancy  that  a  resting  sphere 
of  force  is  encamped  around  every  atom ;  but  this  view  dis- 
poses entirely  of  the  attempt  to  deduce  the  law  of  force- 
variation  from  the  nature  of  space,  as  that  rests  on  the  as- 
sumption of  movement  from  a  centre.  This  attempt  is  fur- 
ther forbidden  by  the  fact  that,  if  space  be  the  real  ground 
of  variation,  there  can  be  only  one  law  of  variation,  as  space 
is  always  and  everywhere  the  same.  And  if  only  one  law, 
then  there  can  be  only  one,  or  no  force  in  the  system.  For 
if  there  were  both  attraction  and  repulsion,  and  they  were 
balanced  at  one  point,  they  would  be  balanced  at  all  points, 
and  would  cancel  each  other.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  one 
were  stronger  than  the  other  at  one  point,  it  would  be  so  at 
all  points,  and  would  banish  the  other. 

But  it  is  needless  to  pursue  these  whimseys  further.  Our 
definition  of  force  excludes  them.  Physical  force,  express- 
ing as  it  does  only  a  relation  between  objects,  is  necessarily 
linear  so  far  as  it  is  related  to  space  at  all.  And  if  these 
linear  relations  exist  on  all  sides  of  a  thing,  it  is  not  due  to 
a  sphere  of  force  encamped  about  it,  but  to  the  existence  of 
things  on  every  side.  The  elements  attract  one  another, 
and  not  the  void.  The  void  itself  is  neither  attracted  nor 
filled  with  attractions.  All  the  most  determined  realist  can 
claim  is,  that  if  a  new  body  were  posited  in  the  void,  it 
would  be  attracted  by  other  related  bodies.  But  these  at- 
tractions, for  all  we  know,  may  vary  according  to  any  law 
of  the  distance  whatever.  They  might  vary  directly  as  well 
as  inversely  as  the  distance ;  and,  as  Herbart  has  pointed 
out,  the  direct  first  power  seems  most  rational  of  all.  We 
might  say,  with  some  show  of  reason,  that  the  intensity  of 
an  attraction  ought  to  diminish  in  the  measure  in  which  it 
is  gratified.  This  is  the  fact  in  most  cases  of  human  desire, 
and  with  such  forces  as  elasticity  and  affinity.  The  chemi- 
cal notion  of  saturation  or  of  satisfied  affinity  is  an  illustra- 
tion. But  there  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  miserly  greed  in  at- 


296  METAPHYSICS. 

traction,  which  grows  more  intense  with  its  gratification. 
In  truth,  the  actual  law  is  always  to  be  determined  by  ob- 
servation. Newton  had  not  attained  to  the  insight  of  some 
speculators,  and  hence  when  observation  did  not  tally  with 
his  calculations,  based  on  the  law  of  the  inverse  square,  he 
laid  them  aside ;  whereas,  if  he  had  only  known  that  force 
must  vary  as  the  law  of  the  inverse  square,  he  might  have 
defied  the  observations.  No  more  did  the  succeeding  gen- 
eration of  astronomers  and  mathematicians  regard  the  law 
as  a  necessary  one ;  and  when  the  theory  of  the  moon,  based 
on  gravitation,  began  to  vary  from  the  facts,  they  began  to 
doubt  the  law  until  further  observation  and  calculation  re- 
moved the  discrepancy.  In  addition  to  this  fact,  it  is  found 
strictly  impossible  to  deal  with  molecular  phenomena  on 
the  theory  that  the  force  varies  as  the  inverse  square.  So, 
then,  we  have  the  fact  that  the  law  of  the  inverse  square  is 
no  necessity  of  thought,,  and  is  not  the  law  of  all  central 
forces.  It  is  universal  neither  in  thought  nor  fact.  All 
that  can  be  said  of  it  is,  that  it  is  better  adapted  to  a  system 
like  ours  than  any  other  law.  Most  other  laws  would  be 
incompatible  with  the  stability  of  the  system ;  and  all  would 
result  in  profound  modifications  of  the  actual  order.  From 
our  theistic  standpoint  we  find  the  reason  of  the  law  in  pur- 
pose. If  one  is  not  content  to  accept  this  teleological  view, 
the  law  must  be  accepted  simply  as  an  opaque  fact. 

Physical  forces,  in  general,  vary  only  with  the  space,  and 
not  with  time,  or  velocity,  or  mode  of  aggregation.  This 
fact  also  admits  of  no  deduction.  The  notion  of  a  perio- 
dicity of  force  is  entirely  possible,  especially  as  it  is  given  in 
our  own  experience.  Human  energy  is  highly  periodic, 
varying  with  the  short  period  of  day  and  night,  and  with  the 
longer  period  of  youth  and  old-age.  The  conception  of  the 
atoms  as  never  wearying,  but  ceaselessly  adequate  to  the  de- 
mands made  upon  them,  is  almost  a  distressing  one.  The 
notion  that  force  should  vary  with  velocity  is  likewise  pos- 
sible. When  forces  vary  only  with  the  distance  any  change 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  297 

of  place  demands  a  new  intensity  of  action,  and  the  change 
must  be  instantaneous.  An  atom  at  a  given  point  must 
have  the  attraction  proper  to  that  point,  no  matter  whether 
it  be  at  rest  or  in  the  most  rapid  motion.  But  change  of 
place  is  incessant  in  the  system,  and  withal  the  velocity  of 
movement  is  often  immense.  Every  atom,  then,  must  in- 
stantaneously adjust  itself  to  the  new  relative  position  of 
every  other  in  the  universe,  and  this  it  must  do  incessantly 
and  forever.  This  view  implies  the  instantaneous  trans- 
mission of  force,  as  far  as  the  transmission  of  force  has  any 
meaning.  If  time  were  required  for  passage,  moving  bodies 
would  not  respond  to  every  other  with  the  exact  intensity 
which  its  position  demands.  In  fact,  however,  there  is  no 
passage.  All  things  are  embraced  in  the  infinite;  and  a* 
state  of  one  is  at  once  a  state  of  the  whole. 

That  the  elements  should  acquire  new  forces  from  aggre- 
gation is  also  a  possible  thought.  In  that  case  the  elements 
taken  individually  would  not  explain  the  aggregate ;  for 
the  properties  of  the  elements  would  be  due  to  the  aggre- 
gate. That  this  is  no  impossibility  is  shown  in  human  ex- 
perience. Society  cannot  be  explained  as  simply  a  collec- 
tion of  independent  units ;  but  the  individual  has  properties 
as  a  member  of  society  which  he  does  not  have  in  himself. 
The  variation  of  force  only  with  the  space  is  no  necessity  of 
thought,  and  is  antecedently  improbable  unless  we  assume 
that  the  system  has  some  end  to  realize  which  would  con- 
flict with  any  other  law.  The  facts  in  the  case  can  be  de- 
termined only  by  induction  ;  and  even  that  cannot  attain  to 
universality.  If  we  should  find  the  laws  all  of  a  kind  at 
present,  we  could  only  conclude  that  the  system  has  entered 
upon  a  period  of  uniformity  and  stability ;  but  not  that  it 
always  has  been,  or  will  be,  the  same.  All  the  laws  of  force, 
of  whatever  kind,  and  all  their  consequences,  such  as  the 
laws  of  motion  and  the  conservation  of  energy,  must  be  ad- 
mitted as  simple  facts  within  the  range  of  observation,  or 
else  referred  to  purpose  as  their  ultimate  ground. 


298  METAPHYSICS. 

In  speaking  of  space  as  a  ground  of  force -variation  we 
denied  that  it  can  be  such  ground.  But  may  it  not  make 
all  action  at  a  distance  impossible.  If  related  to  force  at 
all,  it  seems  better  able  to  bar  its  action  than  anything  else. 
This  has  long  been  a  vexed  question,  almost  a  black  beast, 
in  physical  speculation ;  and  certainly  on  the  received  theory 
which  locates  individual  atoms  in  a  real  and  empty  space, 
it  is  a  rather  tough  problem.  If  we  conceive  a  multitude 
of  individual  atoms  separated  from  one  another  by  an  abso- 
lute void  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  bridge  over  the  abyss 
between  them  by  anything  but  a  pre-established  harmony ; 
and  this  would  only  simulate  action  at  a  distance.  The  void 
would  imply  and  express  the  absence  of  all  essential  relation. 
Newton,  therefore,  in  his  letter  to  Bentley,  insisted  that  no 
one  with  a  moderate  reflective  power  could  imagine  that  the 
gravitation  of  the  elements  is  due  to  any  action  of  the  atoms 
themselves.  And,  indeed,  it  does  seem  incredible  that  the 
infinitesimal  atom  is  really  filling  space  with  its  influence 
to  the  farthest  atom  of  ether  or  star-dust,  and  yet  without 
any  knowledge  of  itself,  or  its  fellows,  or  the  spaces  across 
which  it  acts,  and  yet  adjusting  itself  absolutely,  instantane- 
ously, and  incessantly,  to  each  minutest  change  of  distance, 
in  not  only  one  but  all  the  atoms  of  the  system.  Accord- 
ingly, there  has  always  been  with  physicists  an  anxiety  to 
fill  up  the  void  with  something  through  which  action  should 
be  transmitted,  and  the  result  has  been  the  invention  of  a 
more  or  less  numerous  family  of  ethers.  This  anxiety,  how- 
ever, rests  upon  the  notion  that  action  is  more  intelligible 
when  between  contiguous  things  than  when  between  things 
separate  in  space.  But  we  have  seen,  in  discussing  inter- 
action, that  contiguity  in  space  does  not  remove  the  diffi- 
culty of  interaction,  as  this  lies  in  the  opposition  of  the  no- 
tions of  independence  and  community ;  so  that  not  action 
at  a  distance,  but  action  at  all  between  two  things  assumed 
to  be  independent,  is  what  reason  finds  so  difficult.  The  at- 
tempt to  dispense  with  action  at  a  distance  must  really  deny 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  290 

all  attractive  and  repulsive  forces  to  the  elements,  and  either 
appeal  at  once  to  a  co-ordinating  and  moving  force  in  matter 
which  is  not  of  matter,  or  it  must  reduce  all  material  action 
to  impact. 

The  latter  alternative  has  often  been  chosen  by  physicists. 
When  the  dynamic  view  of  matter  was  first  proposed,  the 
general  objection  to  it  was  that  it  was  a  return  to  the  scho- 
lastic doctrine  of  occult  qualities.  The  present  conception, 
which  endows  matter  with  moving  forces,  was  for  a  long 
time  resisted  on  this  ground,  and  the  demand  was  made  that 
all  material  phenomena  be  explained  by  the  laws  of  motion 
and  impact.  The  same  unrest  with  the  mysterious  impli- 
cations of  gravity  often  reappears  in  attempts  to  explain 
gravitation  by  the  impact  of  some  assumed  ether-atoms.  To 
begin  with,  these  attempts  are  all  utter  failures.  The  phe- 
nomena of  cohesion  and  affinity  utterly  defy  any  attempt  to 
explain  them  as  the  results  of  impact ;  while  the  implica- 
tions of  the  impact  theory  are  without  a  shadow  of  warrant. 
But,  in  the  next  place,  impact  is  far  from  being  so  simple  as 
this  theory  assumes.  On  the  ordinary  theory,  there  is  no 
contact  whatever  of  the  elements,  and  they  are  held  apart 
by  repulsive  forces  of  such  a  kind  that  only  an  infinite  force 
could  bring  the  elements  in  contact.  On  this  theory,  then, 
impact  itself  assumes  action  at  a  distance.  And,  in  general, 
if  force  acts  at  all  between  the  atoms,  it  must  act  at  a  dis- 
tance. An  attractive  force  which  did  not  act  at  a  distance 
could  never  make  itself  known  as  attraction ;  and  a  repul- 
sive force  which  did  not  act  at  a  distance  would  not  be  re- 
pulsion at  all.  To  see  this,  conceive  two  solid  cubes  en- 
dowed with  repulsion  which,  however,  cannot  act  at  a  dis- 
tance. If  these  cubes  occupied  the  same  space,  their  re- 
pulsions could  not  result  in  motion,  no  matter  how  intense 
they  might  be,  because  they  would  be  balanced  in  every  di- 
rection. If  now  they  be  pressed  together,  there  is  not  the 
slightest  reason  why  they  should  not  telescope  each  other. 
In  the  first  place,  such  bodies  would  meet  only  in  the  geo- 


300  METAPHYSICS. 

metrical  plane  which  separates  them,  and  all  the  resistance 
to  interpenetration  must  lie  in  that  plane.  But  the  plane 
itself  is  nothing  but  an  imaginary  surface  without  resist- 
ance; and  hence  the  resistance  must  come  from  the  parts  on 
either  side  of  the  plane.  If,  however,  we  should  allow  that 
eacli  body  has  a  certain  part  of  itself  in  the  plane,  then  those 
parts  which  are  in  the  plane  would  strictly  coincide,  and,  as 
coinciding,  there  would  be  no  reason  why  the  repulsion  be- 
tween these  parts  should  take  one  direction  rather  than  an- 
other ;  and  it  would  practically  be  cancelled,  so  that  the  true 
repulsion  would  still  lie  between  those  parts  on  either  side 
of  the  plane  and  external  to  each  other.  But  as  by  hypoth- 
esis these  parts  cannot  repel  because  at  a  distance,  there  is 
nothing  to  hinder  the  two  bodies  from  sliding  together 
under  pressure.  This  result  would  be  reached  even  if  we 
should  allow  the  atoms  to  be  solid  and  in  absolute  contact. 
We  should  still  have  to  posit  action  at  a  distance.  But,  as 
we  have  frequently  seen,  there  is  no  reason  for  supposing 
that  atoms  are  solid ;  they  are  rather  the  immaterial  ground 
of  phenomenal  solidity.  So,  then,  we  seern  shut  up  to 
affirm  action  at  a  distance. 

But  here  a  new  difficulty  emerges.  If  we  allow  the  gen- 
eral possibility  of  action  at  a  distance,  we  seem  likewise  shut 
up  to  the  paradoxical  admission  that  there  is  no  longer  any 
reason  for  believing  that  a  thing  is  in  one  place  rather  than 
in  another.  How  do  we  know  that  the  things  which,  by  re- 
sisting our  effort  and  coercing  our  sensations,  create  in  us 
the  perception  of  a  world  about  us  are  not  really  located 
beyond  the  bounds  of  our  solar  system?  Crude  common- 
sense,  of  course,  would  reply  that  it  is  directly  cognizant  of 
the  very  being  and  location  of  things ;  but  every  one  com- 
petent to  speculate  at  all  knows  better.  He  knows  that  we 
cognize  things  only  through  their  activities  upon  us,  and 
that  if  these  activities  were  maintained,  our  world-vision 
would  remain  unaltered,  no  matter  what  happened  to  the 
things.  But  since  action  may  take  place  at  a  distance,  why 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  301 

may  not  the  things  which  act  upon  us  be  located  at  any 
point  whatever  in  space  ?  And  since,  in  the  popular  theory 
at  least,  the  void  is  no  bar  to  action,  why  may  not  things  be 
in  some  extra-siderial  region,  and  only  manifest  themselves 
in  our  neighborhood  ?  If  it  be  said  that  existence  in  space 
means  only  that  a  thing  acts  at  a  certain  point,  common- 
sense  is  disturbed,  for  it  thinks  it  means  more  than  this  by 
existence  in  space,  and  in  addition  the  difficulty  is  not  re- 
moved ;  for  if  a  thing  exists  in  space  at  all,  then,  on  the 
hypothesis  of  action  at  a  distance,  the  fact  of  action  at  a 
point  does  not  prove  that  a  thing  is  there.  Moreover,  the 
atom  acts  at  many  points ;  is  it  in  all  of  them  ?  By  oar  un- 
fortunate admission  of  action  at  a  distance,  we  have  deprived 
ourselves  of  every  valid  test  of  the  true  whereabouts  of 
things.  We  may  fancy  that  in  resistance  we  have  such  a 
test,  but  this  too  is  untenable.  Both  attraction  and  resist- 
ance may  point  to  a  certain  centre,  but  this  is  far  from 
proving  that  the  agent  is  really  there ;  for  since  action  may 
take  place  at  a  distance,  it  is  quite  possible  to  view  the  point 
as  the  radiating  centre  of  atomic  manifestation  only.  The 
claim  that  the  atom  must  be  at  the  crossing  of  the  lines  of 
attraction  and  repulsion  depends  on  an  assumption  which  is 
not  self-evident.  This  assumption  is  that  an  atom  can  cause 
another  to  move  only  on  the  line  which  joins  them ;  but,  on 
the  hypothesis  of  action  at  a  distance,  it  is  especially  hard  to 
see  why  the  movement  might  not  take  place  on  any  other 
line  whatever.  Of  course,  attraction  means  a  drawing-to ; 
but  etymology  will  not  help  us  in  this  matter.  If,  then, 
action  at  a  distance  be  allowed,  it  is  theoretically  possible  to 
claim  that,  for  all  we  know,  the  real  agents  of  the  system 
are  removed  from  it  by  the  whole  diameter  of  space.  But 
this  is  so  revolting  a  paradox  that  it  would  hardly  seem 
more  irrational  to  claim  that  things  may  act  in  some  other 
time  than  the  present.  Besides,  on  this  admission,  the  bot- 
tom would  fall  out  of  the  atomic  theory  itself.  The  great 
reason  for  admitting  separate  atoms  is  the  desire  to  locate 


302  METAPHYSICS. 

an  agent  at  the  centre  of  attractions  and  repulsions ;  if  we 
locate  the  agent  elsewhere,  the  only  theory  which  would  be 
satisfactory  in  any  way  would  be  one  which  allowed  one  and 
the  same  agent  to  do  all  the  work.  To  complete  the  para- 
dox, we  must  add  that  if  we  insist  that  a  thing  is  wherever 
it  acts,  then  we  have  to  attribute  a  kind  of  omnipresence  to 
every  atom;  as  every  atom  is  said  to  attract  every  other, 
that  is,  to  act  upon  every  other.  This  view  would  be  em- 
barrassing enough.  It  would  lead  at  once  to  the  previous 
conclusion,  that  there  is  no  warrant  for  saying  that  the  atom 
is  in  one  place  rather  than  in  another.  It  would,  indeed,  be 
in  every  place  and  everywhere  as  one  and  the  same  atom. 
Thus  we  should  have  a  very  peculiar  kind  and  case  of  om- 
nipresence. 

These  bizarre  difficulties  arise  mainly  from  the  attempt  to 
construct  a  system  out  of  atoms  and  the  void  alone.  Every 
such  attempt  shatters  on  these  and  similar  absurdities ;  and 
it  is  hard  to  escape  all  of  them  on  any  theory  which  allows 
the  substantive  reality  of  space.  In  our  own  theory  we  es- 
cape the  general  difficulty  of  action  at  a  distance  by  denying 
the  independence  of  the  atoms.  There  is,  then,  no  void  be- 
tween the  atoms  across  which  action  must  travel ;  but  a  state 
of  any  atom  is  at  once  a  state  of  the  whole,  and  thus  of  all 
the  other  atoms.  Thus  there  is  no  void  to  cross,  but  all 
things  are  comprised  in  the  unity  of  the  infinite.  But  we 
cannot  stop  here.  In  particular,  when  this  view  is  combined 
with  the  ideal  theory  of  space,  it  becomes  impossible  to 
maintain  the  atomic  theory  in  its  current  form.  The  spatial 
discreteness  and  picturability  of  the  atoms  disappear  entire- 
ly, and  with  them  disappear  also  the  chief  reasons  for  view- 
ing the  atoms  as  ontological  facts.  It  becomes  far  more 
simple  to  view  the  so-called  atomic  activities  as  simply  the 
discrete  activities  of  the  one  than  to  posit  a  multitude  of 
agents,  which  are  not  agents  after  all.  For,  as  we  pointed 
out  in  treating  of  change,  the  notion  of  impersonal  being  in 
general  is  simply  process ;  and  as  we  pointed  out  in  discus- 


MATTER  AND  FORCE.  303 

sing  interaction,  the  notion  of  impersonal  dependent  being 
is  identical  with  a  flowing  activity  of  the  independent.  Such 
being  would  not  fill  out  the  notion  of  existence.  We  h 
then,  that  substantive  existence  cannot  be  ascribed  to  the 
atoms.  They  must  be  viewed  as  elementary  forms  of  the 
infinite's  action ;  and  they  owe  their  substantive  character 
solely  to  the  fact  that  we  think  under  the  forms  of  substance 
and  attribute.  But  to  regard  them  as  true  things  is  only  an 
embarrassment  without  any  compensating  advantages.  We 
decide,  therefore,  in  place  of  the  substantive  atoms,  to  posit 
a  series  of  related  elementary  activities  in  the  infinite  such 
that  they  produce  for  us  the  appearance  of  a  world  of  things ) 
spatially  discrete.  On  this  view  all  questions  about  the 
unity,  indivisibility,  and  indestructibility  of  the  atom  disap- 
pear. These  activities  are  all  conditioned  in  their  nature 
and  inter-relations  by  the  plan  and  nature  of  the  whole. 
They  are  constant  if  the  plan  requires  constancy,  and  other- 
wise not.  If  the  plan  call  for  progress,  these  activities  may 
pass  from  lower  to  higher  forms,  so  that  what  we  call  the 
atoms  may  themselves  undergo  development.  Their  exist- 
ence and  nature  being  contingent  upon  the  world-plan,  it  is 
entirely  possible  that  they  may  lose  existence  or  change 
character  completely  as  the  plan  unfolds.  These  activities 
may  also  be  so  correlated  that  certain  activities  shall  be  re- 
placed by  certain  others  entirely  different.  Indeed,  the  atom 
as  a  form  of  activity  has  no  identity  whatever.  It  may  be 
a  constant  reproduction  of  the  same  form,  and  it  may  vary 
in  intensity  and  character ;  but  in  either  case  the  fact  will 
be  determined  by  the  demands  of  the  system.  Physical 
phenomena  on  this  view  are  no  longer  referable  to  the  atoms 
as  their  substantial  ground,  but  to  the  agency  of  the  infinite. 
At  the  same  time,  the  atomic  theory  retains  its  full  value  as 
an  instrument  of  research  and  as  a  means  of  representing 
the  facts  to  the  imagination.  As  thus  used,  it  is  a  most 
fruitful  device,  like  the  decomposition  of  forces  in  mechan- 
ics. Mechanics  could  not  get  along  without  a  set  of  formal 


304  METAPHYSICS. 

devices  such  as  the  decomposition  and  recomposition  of 
forces,  or  the  representation  of  force  by  certain  functions 
of  the  space  and  time  or  of  velocity  and  time;  and  yet  these 
are  generally  only  logical  devices  for  the  purpose  of  making 
the  problem  amenable  to  our  calculus.  But  the  practical 
value  of  these  conceptions  misleads  no  one  into  overlooking 
their  purely  formal  character.  The  actual  force  is  not  com- 
pounded of  three  rectilinear  components ;  and  force  itself 
is  forever  different  from  lines  and  from  the  second  differen- 
tial coefficient  of  the  space  referred  to  the  time.  If,  then, 
the  atomic  theory  were  rejected  entirely,  its  practical  and 
methodological  value  would  still  remain.  But  there  is  no 
need  to  regard  the  theory  as  a  mei'e  device  of  method.  The 
phenomena  of  body  cannot  be  explained  as  the  outcome  of 
a  single  and  simple  act.  On  the  contrary,  there  are  opposi- 
tion and  union  throughout  the  mass.  If,  then,  we  deny  the 
ontological  character  of  the  atoms,  we  must  allow  that,  as 
elementary  acts  of  the  infinite,  they  are  diverse  and  mani- 
fold. Hence  the  atomic  theory,  while  it  does  not  represent 
the  substantial  fact,  does  represent  the  form  of  the  total  ac- 
tivity by  which  the  phenomena  are  produced.  We  may, 
then,  resume  it  with  perfect  confidence,  guarding  ourselves 
only  against  mistaking  the  form  of  the  activity  for  its  ulti- 
mate causal  ground. 


THE  COSMOS  AS   MECHANISM.  305 


CHAPTER  Y. 

THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM. 

THEKE  is  an  outstanding  debate  in  human  thought  which, 
in  one  form  or  another,  reaches  back  to  the  dawn  of  scien- 
tific speculation.  This  debate  is  upon  the  question  whether 
nature  is  a  mechanism  or  an  organism.  The  necessity  of 
the  organic  conception  has  been  vehemently  affirmed  by  the 
majority  of  speculative  philosophers,  while  the  mechanical 
doctrine  has  been  as  vehemently  affirmed  by  physical  sci- 
ence. The  successes  of  the  latter  on  the  basis  of  the  me- 
chanical conception  have  won  for  this  view  almost  universal 
recognition.  Our  aim  is  to  get  some  insight  into  the  merits 
of  the  dispute,  and  to  reach  a  corresponding  decision. 

As  is  so  often  the  case  in  such  debates,  neither  of  the  op- 
posing views  is  clearly  conceived.  The  organic  theory  has 
so  little  positive  content  as  to  be  scarcely  more  than  a  de- 
nial of  the  mechanical  view ;  while  the  latter  has  been  so 
variously  held  as  to  be  identified  at  one  time  with  the  cor- 
puscular philosophy  and  materialism,  while  at  others  it  ex- 
presses only  a  mode  of  working,  and  sometimes  only  a  prin- 
ciple of  method,  like  the  devices  of  mathematics.  In  the 
first  case  it  is  ontological,  and  claims  to  know  and  name  the 
cause  of  phenomena.  In  the  second  case  it  is  purely  phe- 
nomenal, describing  the  form  of  causal  activity,  but  saying 
nothing  of  the  cause  itself.  In  this  form  it  often  identifies 
itself  with  positivism,  and  protests  that  it  knows  of  nothing 
but  phenomena  and  their  laws.  In  the  third  case  the  the- 
ory is  one  of  the  many  formal  devices  of  thought  whicli 
20 


306  METAPHYSICS. 

have  no  significance  beyond  their  formal  value  or  conven- 
ience. It  is  plain  that  no  decision  can  be  reached  while  the 
opposing  views  remain  in  this  nebulous  condition.  It  is  al- 
ways possible  to  shift  position  according  to  the  state  of  the 
dispute,  and  the  debate  becomes  a  war  of  words.  In  the 
various  discussions  of  this  subject  this  possibility  has  been 
abundantly  realized. 

The  organic  theory  is  little  more  than  an  expression  of 
the  demand  for  unity  in  nature.  Its  defenders  rightly  hold 
that  a  system  cannot  be  constructed  out  of  independent  and 
unrelated  parts.  They  demand,  therefore,  that  the  whole 
must  precede  and  determine  its  parts.  The  mechanical  the- 
ory, on  the  other  hand,  insists  on  explaining  the  whole  as 
the  sum  or  outcome  of  the  parts.  But  the  demands  of  the 
organic  theory,  which  in  themselves  are  justified,  have  been 
met  in  a  very  awkward  manner.  Kature  has  been  hyposta- 
sized  into  a  mysterious  unity,  and  made  the  subject  of  all 
movement  and  harmony  in  the  system.  Aided  by  capitals 
and  italics,  this  abstraction  has  not  failed  to  shed  the  utmost 
light  on  all  problems.  In  the  place  of  a  mechanism  which 
necessarily  produces  natural  phenomena,  some  have  posited 
an  unconscious  intelligence,  or  a  mysterious  instinct.  Others 
have  spoken  much  of  a  controlling  idea  which  rules  in  nat- 
ure, and  prescribes  to  all  the  parts  what  they  shall  be  and 
do.  The  aim  in  these  theories  is  to  posit  something  be- 
tween the  conscious  intelligence  of  God  and  a  blind  and 
necessary  mechanism.  But  the  attempt  is  a  failure.  An 
unconscious  intelligence  is  a  pure  contradiction.  That  which 
is  unconscious  cannot  be  intelligent,  and  that  which  is  intel- 
ligent cannot  be  unconscious.  A  mysterious  instinct,  also, 
is  a  phrase  empty  of  the  slightest  positive  content;  and  the 
explanation  of  a  fact  by  instinct  is  to  abandon  explanation 
while  pretending  to  give  it.  Finally,  a  controlling  idea  has 
no  meaning  except  as  a  thought  in  the  consciousness  of 
some  person  who  governs  himself  accordingly.  When  this 
conscious  agent  is  not  given,  the  notion  is  a  pure  vacuum, 


THE   COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  307 

and  the  controlling  idea  must  be  replaced  by  a  mechanism 
of  such  a  kind  as  to  work  in  a  certain  way.  Mind  and 
mechanism  are  clear  conceptions.  The  former  governs  it- 
self by  preconceived  laws,  the  latter  is  driven  from  behind. 
In  the  former  an  effect  is  the  outcome  of  purpose,  in  the 
latter  it  is  the  necessary  result  of  its  antecedents.  No  third 
view  is  possible  except  as  something  purely  negative.  The 
only  means  of  uniting  the  two  views  is  in  the  conception  of 
final  cause.  In  this  case  the  mechanism  is  determined  ac- 
cording to  the  idea,  and  the  idea  is  realized  only  through 
the  mechanism.  It  is  only  as  a  doctrine  of  final  cause  that 
the  organic  theory  has  any  clear  or  tenable  meaning.  The 
unconscious  intelligence  of  nature  then  becomes  the  con- 
scious intelligence  of  the  creator;  and  the  controlling  idea 
is  not  the  hypostasis  of  an  abstraction,  but  the  rule  or  plan 
according  to  which  the  creator  proceeds.  As  thus  conceived, 
the  organic  theory  demands  the  mechanical  theory  as  its 
supplement.  Their  relation  becomes  that  of  final  and  effi- 
cient cause,  and  each  demands  the  other. 

Historically,  the  mechanical  theory  has  undergone  various 
changes,  all  of  which,  however,  have  left  their  traces  in  the 
current  conception.  Prof.  Harms,  in  Karsten's  "Encyclo- 
pedic der  Physik,"  insists  that  a  purely  mechanical  theory 
of  things  is  found  only  in  the  Greek  atomism,  which,  with- 
out appealing  to  moving  forces  or  occult  qualities  of  any 
kind,  sought  to  construe  the  system  from  atoms  and  the 
void  alone.  Descartes  went  even  further,  and  rejected  the 
Greek  conception  as  not  purely  mechanical.  This  he  did 
partly  on  the  ground  that  the  Greeks  assumed  the  void  as 
real,  and  partly  because  they  posited  weight  as  a  property 
of  the  atoms.  The  reality  of  the  void  he  denied  as  absurd, 
and  the  assumption  of  weight  he  regarded  as  a  return  to  the 
dreary  waste  of  occult  qualities.  For  him  the  essence  of 
matter  was  extension,  and  for  him  the  mechanical  theory 
implied  that  all  heterogeneit}7-  of  quantity  and  quality  in  the 
material  world  can  be  explained  as  modifications  of  the  one 


308  METAPHYSICS. 

homogeneous  property  of  extension.  Any  theory  which 
came  short  of  this  simplicity  was  in  so  far  a  departure  from 
the  mechanical  view.  Accordingly  the  dynamic  conception 
of  matter  was  for  a  long  time  resisted  as  not  mechanical. 
Matter,  it  was  held,  can  act  only  by  impact ;  and  any  other 
theory  was  rejected  as  a  return  to  occult  qualities.  In  this 
view  that  alone  is  a  mechanical  explanation  which  refers  a 
phenomenon  to  a  combination  of  particles  whose  essence  is 
extension,  and  which  act  only  by  impact.  Extension,  solid- 
ity, motion,  and  impact  are  viewed  as  self-sufficient  ideas, 
and  as  the  only  outfit  demanded  by  the  mechanical  philoso- 
phy. Hence,  in  the  Cartesian  philosophy,  all  dynamic  the- 
ories of  matter  are  opposed  to  mechanism ;  and  the  antithesis 
of  mechanism  is  not  organism,  but  dynamism. 

^Nevertheless,  the  mechanical  theory  is  by  no  means  iden- 
tical in  the  minds  of  its  holders  with  either  Cartesianism  or 
corpuscular  atomism.  And  yet  traces  are  not  lacking  of 
the  feeling  that  a  pure  mechanism  ought  not  to  appeal  to 
other  notions  than  those  mentioned.  Still,  the  holders  of 
this  view  make  the  freest  use  of  the  notion  of  moving 
forces ;  and  it  is  chiefly  in  occasional  attempts  to  explain 
these  forces  as  the  result  of  pressure  or  of  impact  that  the 
inner  unrest  appears.  But  the  moving  forces  assumed  are 
made  as  colorless  as  possible ;  and  thus  the  mechanical  the- 
ory becomes  about  identical  with  theoretical  mechanics.  In 
this  science,  we  have  the  three  factors  of  matter,  force,  and 
motion  to  determine  their  mutual  relations.  Here,  too,  all 
qualitative  differences  are  ignored.  Matter  is  simply  a  rigid 
mass  or  an  aggregate  of  rigid  atoms.  Force  is  viewed  sim- 
ply as  causing  or  retarding  motion.  All  is  quantity  in  the 
theory;  and  quality  is  dealt  with  only  as  it  can  be  trans- 
formed into  quantity.  The  system  thus  reached  differs 
from  the  corpuscular  theory  only  in  the  conception  of  mov- 
ing forces ;  but  these  are  so  colorless  as  not  to  change  the 
appearance  of  the  whole.  Both  views  are  equally  monoto- 
nous. All  that  is  possible  in  either  is  a  redistribution  of 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  3Q9 

matter  according  to  the  laws  of  motion.  This  is  produced 
in  one  case  by  the  atoms  knocking  against  one  another;  in 
the  other  case  the  atoms  pull  or  push  one  another ;  but  in 
both  cases  the  process  is  a  perfect  monotone.  Accordingly 
a  mechanical  system  is  often  said  to  be  one  in  which  there 
is  nothing  but  a  redistribution  of  matter  and  motion ;  and 
the  claim  that  the  system  is  mechanical  is  understood  to 
mean  that  everything  can  be  explained  in  terms  of  matter 
and  motion  ;  and  matter  is  conceived  as  essentially  the  same 
in  all  its  combinations.  This  is,  perhaps,  the  popular  con- 
ception of  the  mechanical  theory ;  and  in  this  form  it  is 
identical  with  the  crudest  materialism. 

Bat  there  is  another  conception  of  the  mechanical  theory, 
according  to  which  it  has  no  essential  connection  with  ma- 
terialism, and  is  not  limited  to  physical  phenomena.  This 
new  view  assumes  the  system  to  exist,  but  how  or  why  it 
does  not  pretend  to  tell.  It  further  assumes  that  in  the  on- 
goings of  this  system  there  are  fixed,  general  laws;  but 
what  these  laws  are  is  to  be  learned  only  from  experience. 
"With  these  assumptions  it  aims  to  show  how  any  given  state 
of  things  follows  from  the  preceding  state  of  things  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  which  rule  the  succession.  It  demands, 
therefore,  that  every  event  be  connected  with  its  antece- 
dents by  fixed  law,  and  it  aims  to  comprehend  every  event 
as  the  necessary  outcome  of  its  antecedents  under  the  system 
of  law.  Again,  if  any  object  whatever  be  complex,  the 
theory  aims  to  understand  it  as  the  outcome  of  its  compo- 
nents, which  are  also  supposed  to  unite  according  to  fixed 
laws.  This  part  of  the  theory  applies  to  coexistences  as  the 
former  applies  to  sequences.  To  understand  the  coexistent 
whole,  the  theory  resolves  it  into  its  parts ;  and  to  reach  the 
whole,  it  constructs  it  out  of  its  parts.  The  properties  of 
the  mass  are  deduced  from  the  properties  of  the  elements. 
The  properties  of  the  compound  of  whatever  kind  are  re- 
ferred to  those  of  the  components.  This  part  of  the  theory 
takes  the  direction  of  atomism  in  physical  science,  and  of 


310  METAPHYSICS. 

analysis  everywhere.  This  analysis  is  then  succeeded  by  a 
synthesis  in  order  to  show  how  the  compound  result  flows 
from  the  factors  which  compose  it.  The  essential  idea  of 
the  theory,  then,  is  that  composition  and  succession  in  the 
system  take  place  according  to  fixed  laws,  and  that  when  the 
components  and  the  laws  are  known,  the  result  may  be  logi- 
cally deduced. 

"With  this  understanding,  the  field  of  mechanism  is  greatly 
enlarged ;  for  wherever  there  is  combination  of  factors  ac- 
cording to  any  law  whatever,  there  is  mechanism.  We  can 
carry  the  notion  with  perfect  propriety  into  psychology  and 
into  society.  For  a  complex  mental  state  owes  its  character 
to  the  simple  elements  which  compose  it ;  and  these  unite 
according  to  fixed  mental  laws.  In  like  manner  mental 
states  succeed  one  another  according  to  fixed  laws,  so  that, 
freedom  apart,  any  given  state  can  be  understood  as  the  out- 
come of  its  antecedents.  Likewise  a  complex  social  effect 
must  be  viewed  as  the  resultant  of  the  manifold  factors 
which  enter  into  it,  or  precede  it.  We  may  then  rightly 
speak  of  a  mental  mechanism,  according  to  which  given 
mental  antecedents  have  corresponding  consequents,  and  ac- 
cording to  which  the  components  of  a  complex  mental  state 
are  all  represented  in  the  outcome.  When,  in  dreams  or 
reverie,  the  will  is  withdrawn  from  intellection,  the  succes- 
sion and  combination  of  ideas  are  doubtless  strictly  deter- 
mined by  the  primary  laws  of  mental  action  ;  so  that  if  we 
knew  the  circumstances  and  the  laws  we  could  predict  the 
outcome  with  perfect  certainty.  With  equal  propriety  we 
may  speak  of  a  social  mechanism ;  for  in  society,  also,  the 
simple  explains  the  complex,  and  the  past  explains  the  pres- 
ent ;  and  both  the  combination  and  the  succession  are  deter- 
mined by  law.  Nowhere  can  this  notion  of  a  fixed  order 
be  dispensed  with.  In  speaking  of  interaction,  we  pointed 
out  that  the  notion  of  a  system  implies  an  adjustment  of  its 
members  such  that  a  given  state  of  one  implies  in  the  others 
a  state  definite  in  kind  and  degree ;  and  such  a  given  state 


TIIE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  3H 

of  things  can  be  followed  by  only  one  consequent.  With- 
out this  assumption  like  causes  would  have  unlike  effects ; 
and  we  should  be  put  to  permanent  and  utter  mental  con- 
fusion. And  not  only  is  the  assumption  of  fixed  laws  for 
all  combination  and  succession  necessary  to  thought,  but  we 
also  depend  upon  it  in  practice.  Our  efforts  at  education 
rest  upon  this  conception.  We  assume  that  there  are  fixed 
laws  in  mind,  of  which  we  must  avail  ourselves  to  reach  our 
end.  Again,  in  our  efforts  at  self-government  we  make  the 
same  assumption.  Our  freedom  does  not  extend  to  a  con- 
trol of  these  mental  laws,  but  only  to  their  use.  The  high- 
est illustration  of  this  fixed  order  is  found  in  reason  itself. 
Here  all  synthesis  of  ideas  and  all  movement  of  rational 
thought  rest  on  fixed  laws,  and  are  impossible  otherwise. 
In  a  previous  chapter  we  pointed  out  that  these  laws  cannot 
dispense  with  freedom ;  here  we  point  out  that  freedom 
cannot  dispense  with  these  laws  as  the  fixed  factors  in  all 
rational  operations.  Without  a  foundation  of  uniformity, 
freedom  would  be  worthless,  if  not  impossible.  In  this 
most  general  sense  of  fixed  laws,  determining  all  combina- 
tion and  succession,  mechanism  is  an  integral  part  of  the 
notion  of  any  and  every  system. 

The  necessity  of  the  mechanical  theory  as  a  principle  of 
method  is  further  seen  by  observing  the  nature  of  scientific 
explanation.  Explanation,  in  general,  may  be  metaphysical, 
teleological,  and  scientific.  A  metaphysical  explanation 
consists  in  referring  things  and  events  to  their  ontological 
causes.  A  teleological  explanation  consists  in  giving  the 
purpose  of  things  and  their  activities ;  and  a  scientific  ex- 
planation consists  in  showing  how  a  given  state  of  things 
results  from  an  antecedent  state  of  things  according  to  cer- 
tain general  laws ;  or  how  the  properties  of  a  compound  de- 
pend on  those  of  its  components.  The  scientific  explana- 
tion, then,  assumes  the  system  and  its  laws,  and  makes  no 
attempt  to  tell  how  these  are  possible,  or  for  what  purpose 
they  exist.  It  only  aims  to  show  how  within  this  system 


312  METAPHYSICS. 

one  state  of  things  results  from  another  state  of  things,  and 
how  certain  factors  combine  to  produce  certain  results. 
And  when  any  given  state  of  things,  whether  in  mind,  or 
matter,  or  society,  is  connected  with  the  antecedent  state  of 
things  according  to  some  general  law,  it  is  regarded  as  ex- 
plained. The  theory,  then,  says  nothing  about  the  causes 
at  work,  but  only  describes  the  order  and  the  laws  of  change 
which  some  cause  or  causes  produce  and  maintain. 

In  this  sense,  the  mechanical  theory  is  simply  a  principle 
of  method.  It  commands  us,  first,  to  analyze  every  com- 
pound into  its  factors,  and  then,  by  a  synthesis  of  the  fac- 
tors, to  construct  their  resultant.  This  principle  is  by  no 
means  limited  to  physics,  but  is  universal  in  its  application. 
It  is  as  valid  in  psychology,  sociology,  and  philosophical 
history  as  in  the  sciences  of  matter.  Social  science  and 
philosophical  history,  especially,  owe  all  their  progress  to 
the  use  of  this  method.  Neither  was  possible  until  the 
idea  of  a  fixed  order  in  the  combinations  and  succession  of 
events  was  introduced,  and  until  men  began  to  look  for  the 
causes  of  political  and  social  events  in  the  nature  of  their 
antecedents,  or  in  the  nature  of  their  component  elements. 
And  this  brings  us  again  to  the  notion  of  a  social  mechan- 
ism, in  which  effects  result  from  the  fixed  nature  of  things 
with  the  same  necessity  as  in  the  outer  world.  Even  in 
mind  and  society,  as  well  as  in  the  physical  realm,  freedom 
cannot  modify  these  laws ;  it  can  only  use  them.  Thus,  in 
society,  it  is  possible  for  men  to  do  or  not  to  do,  but  the 
consequences  are  beyond  volition.  The  moment  an  act  is 
performed,  it  enters  into  the  great  web  of  law  and  causa- 
tion, and  escapes  from  any  direct  control  by  volition.  To 
change  the  result,  freedom  must  call  in  some  other  law,  and 
thus,  by  pitting  law  against  law,  gain  the  desired  end.  Leg- 
islators may  make  laws,  but  they  cannot  legislate  their  ef- 
fects. Mistaken  laws  lead  to  mischief,  and  wise  laws  lead 
to  good,  but  in  both  cases  the  effect  is  due  to  the  mechan- 
ism of  society  and  of  human  nature.  With  a  knowledge  of 


THE   COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  313 

this  fixed  order,  the  historian  can  trace  interaction  where 
the  annalist  finds  only  coexistence,  and  cause  and  effect 
where  the  annalist  finds  only  sequence.  In  this  way  history 
and  legislation  become  sciences.  In  general,  then,  the  sci- 
entific explanation  of  any  event  consists  in  connecting  it 
with  its  antecedents,  according  to  those  laws  which  deter- 
mine the  succession ;  and  the  explanation  of  any  compound 
consists  in  referring  it  to  its  components.  And  the  rule  of 
procedure  is,  (1)  to  analyze  the  thing  or  event  into  its  ulti- 
mate factors ;  (2)  to  look  for  the  laws  which  govern  the 
combination  or  succession  ;  and,  (3),  by  synthesis  of  the  fac- 
tors according  to  the  laws,  to  construct  the  thing  or  event 
as  their  resultant.  The  gist  of  the  explanation  consists  in 
this  synthesis ;  the  other  operations  are  but  preliminary. 
When  this  synthesis  or  deduction  is  impossible,  there  can  be 
no  scientific  or  mechanical  explanation.  In  such  cases  the 
facts  may  be  known  as  facts,  and  may  be  referred  to  a  cause, 
but,  as  not  flowing  from  the  antecedents,  they  lie  beyond 
properly  scientific  explanation. 

From  this  exposition  of  the  mechanical  theory,  it  is  plain 
that  it  expresses  a  just  demand  of  intelligence.  The  mind 
demands  continuity  and  law  in  the  system.  A  system  in 
which  the  present  had  only  a  temporal  relation  to  the  past 
could  never  be  the  work  of  a  self-respecting  intelligence. 
It  would  be  simply  an  arbitrary  and  disconnected  doing  and 
undoing.  Equally  absurd  would  be  a  system  in  which  there 
should  be  no  established  order  of  procedure.  In  that  case, 
anything  might  be  followed  by  everything,  and  like  causes 
might  have  unlike  effects.  This  element  of  law  determin- 
ing combination  and  interaction  is  very  much  more  impor- 
tant than  the  element  of  continuity.  The  latter,  as  we  shall 
see,  is  far  from  universal,  but  the  former  admits  of  no  ex- 
ception. It  is  this  element  alone  which  makes  reason  pos- 
sible, or  which  fits  the  physical  system  to  be  the  instrument 
of  intelligence.  If  there  were  no  fixed  modes  of  working 
in  the  universe,  complete  and  hopeless  confusion  would  re- 


3U  METAPHYSICS. 

suit,  both  in  the  outer  and  in  the  inner  world.  In  addition 
to  these  features,  the  mechanical  theory  further  rests  upon 
the  mental  demand  to  know  how  any  given  event  has  been 
brought  about.  We  have  insisted  that  the  demand  for  a 
final  cause  is  justified,  but  this  is  only  one  side  of  the  mat- 
ter. If  all  the  features  of  the  system  could  be  shown  to  be 
implications  of  some  eternal  idea,  we  should  still  have  no 
knowledge  of  how  this  logical  system  is  set  in  reality,  so  as 
to  meet  the  demands  of  the  idea.  The  idea  itself  is  simply 
a  thought;  and  if  it  is  to  be  realized,  its  logical  implica- 
tions must  be  replaced  by  a  dynamic  system  of  things  inter- 
acting according  to  general  laws.  That  is,  the  idea  must 
pass  over  from  final  to  efficient  cause. 

From  the  preceding  exposition,  the  limits  of  the  mechan- 
ical theory  are  also  plain.  Mechanism  can  never  explain 
itself.  It  assumes  the  system  and  its  laws,  and  only  aims 
to  discover  the  inter-connection  of  phenomena  within  the 
system.  Thus,  in  astronomy,  it  assumes  gravity  and  its 
law.  These  are  simple  facts  which  must  be  recognized,  but 
cannot  be  deduced  or  comprehended.  But,  assuming  them 
to  be  facts,  it  is  possible  to  deduce  a  great  variety  of  conse- 
quences, and  especially  to  exhibit  any  position  of  the  plan- 
ets, as  the  result  of  their  preceding  positions.  The  same  is 
true  in  every  application  of  the  theory.  Certain  elementary 
laws  of  action  are  assumed  or  discovered,  and  then  all  com- 
plex results  are  exhibited  as  their  outcome  under  the  spe- 
cific circumstances.  These  factors  of  the  process  can  never 
be  explained  by  the  process.  They  found  the  theory  as  its 
postulates,  and  only  an  inverted  intelligence  would  hope  to 
explain  them  by  their  results.  They  are  the  alphabet,  or 
type,  of  the  process,  and,  as  such,  cannot  be  explained  by  it 
any  more  than  letters  can  be  explained  by  their  collocation. 
The  alphabet  is  the  condition  of  written  words,  and  we  ex- 
plain all  words  by  decomposing  them  into  the  letters,  but 
with  the  letters  decomposition  and  explanation  cease.  So, 
also,  in  mechanical  explanation,  we  cannot  go  on  forever, 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  315 

but  must  at  last  come  down  to  some  fact  or  facts  which  can- 
not be  further  explained.  In  theoretical  mechanics,  we  stop 
with  motions  in  a  straight  line  and  with  linear  forces. 
These  we  make  no  attempt  to  deduce  or  explain,  but  use 
them  as  our  alphabet  for  spelling  out  the  complex  words 
and  sentences  found  in  the  motions  of  the  external  world. 
In  physics  and  chemistry,  again,  we  stop  with  the  atoms  and 
molecules.  Physics  has  not  the  task  of  accounting  for  these, 
but  only,  by  means  of  these,  to  account  for  masses  and  their 
properties.  Likewise,  in  psychology,  we  have  to  assume 
sensation  and  the  elementary  laws  of  mental  action.  Ex- 
planation does  not  apply  to  these ;  but,  by  means  of  them, 
the  psychologist  seeks  to  account  for  the  complex  forms  of 
the  mental  life.  This  fact,  that  mechanism  cannot  explain 
itself,  is  often  overlooked  by  disciples  of  the  mechanical  the- 
ory. Hence  arise  the  attempts  to  explain  the  system  and/' 
its  laws  as  the  result  of  its  own  processes.  A  mania  for 
analysis  and  explanation  often  seizes  the  speculator,  which 
results  in  the  demand  that  all  the  definite  laws  and  forms 
of  existence  be  deduced  from  some  antecedent  state  of  law- 
less indefiniteness.  The  inverted  and  absurd  nature  of  this 
procedure  is  evident.  It  is  inverted,  because  it  seeks  to 
comprehend  the  system  as  the  result  of  its  own  processes ; 
and  it  is  absurd,  because  it  seeks  to  deduce  the  definite  from 
the  indefinite,  and  law  from  the  lawless.  It  is,  indeed,  pos- 
sible that  a  given  law  may  be  the  result  of  some  deeper  law, 
but  this  bare  possibility  can  never  justify  us  in  going  behind 
any  law,  unless  we  find  in  the  facts  themselves  a  summons 
to  cany  our  analysis  and  regress  still  further.  But,  if  this 
were  the  case,  we  should  still  have  to  assume  fixed  laws  of 
some  kind  as  the  postulates  of  our  procedure,  and  hence  as 
lying  beyond  mechanical  explanation.  Hence  there  will 
always  be,  in  the  mechanical  theory,  certain  data  which  can- 
not be  deduced.  Analysis  cannot  analyze  something  into 
nothing,  and  synthesis  cannot  build  something  out  of  noth- 
ing. And  these  data,  as  the  postulates  of  mechanical  neces- 


316  METAPHYSICS. 

sitj,  will  always  lie  beyond  it ;  for  mechanical  necessity  is 
always  hypothetical.  The  conclusions  deduced  are  neces- 
sary only  on  the  assumed  reality  of  the  factors  or  forces 
which  enter  into  the  combination.  To  violate  mechanical 
necessit}T,  it  would  be  necessary  to  cause  the  same  forces  to 
have  different  resultants,  37et  without  changing  the  forces 
themselves.  But  a  modification  of  the  resultant,  by  modi- 
fying the  forces,  or  by  introducing  some  new  force,  is  possi- 
ble, without  in  any  way  affecting  the  laws  which  determine 
the  combination.  Thus  mechanical  necessity  appears  as 
something  secondary  and  derived.  It  does  not  penetrate 
into  the  ontological  realm,  where  power  has  its  seat,  but  rep- 
resents only  the  form  and  laws  of  an  interaction  which  can- 
not be  mechanically  constructed,  because  it  founds  mechan- 
ism. The  attempt  to  explain  everything  mechanically  leads 
not  merely  to  the  difficulties  of  an  infinite  regress,  but  is 
really  an  attempt  to  explain  something  by  nothing.  Un- 
fortunately, this  extravagance  is  not  unknown  in  the  his- 
tory of  speculation. 

The  mechanical  theory,  then,  is  limited,  on  the  one  hand, 
by  the  necessity  of  assuming  the  system  with  its  fundamen- 
tal phenomena  and  laws.  That  it  cannot  collide  with  tele- 
ology is  almost  self-evident.  Its  explanations  consist  entire- 
ly in  showing  how  an  effect  has  been  reached ;  and  they 
leave  every  one  free  to  believe  that  there  is  purpose  in  the 
process.  The  theory  has  the  further  advantage  for  the  tele- 
ologist  that  it  excludes  the  fancy  common  with  weak  or  un- 
trained minds,  that  an  essentially  lawless  or  chaotic  system 
could  of  itself  evolve  order  and  law.  The  mechanical  sys- 
tem is  definite  from  the  start ;  and,  unless  interfered  with, 
its  entire  future  is  contained  in  the  first  moment.  It  can 
never  give  itself  any  determinations  which  have  not  been 
implicit  in  it  from  the  beginning.  Hence  the  attempt  to 
give  a  mechanical  explanation  of  a  teleological  problem  al- 
ways consists  in  positing  a  set  of  agents  or  conditions  of  such 
a  kind  and  in  such  relations  that  they  must  bring  about  the 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  317 

result  iii  question.     That  this  is  a  postponement,  not  a  solu- 
tion, of  the  problem  is  evident. 

The  mechanical  theory  meets  a  further  limitation  in  the 
appearance  of  any  new  law,  and  in  the  intervention  of  free- 
dom. If  we  conceive  the  elements  moving  under  the  influ- 
ence of  gravity  alone,  we  can  deduce  their  future  from  their 
present,  as  long  as  no  new  law  or  force  appears.  But  in  the 
course  of  their  interaction,  suddenly  a  new  form  of  activity, 
as  the  chemical,  begins.  This  new  form  cannot  be  deduced 
from  the  preceding  state  of  the  system  as  a  rational  conse- 
quence, and  must  be  viewed  as  the  manifestation  of  a  new 
force  or  law.  Up  to  a  certain  point  the  new  force  would  be 
unmanif ested ;  and  when  it  appeared,  it  would  not  be  a  con- 
sequence of  previously  known  laws,  but  as  a  new  manifesta- 
tion of  the  inner  nature  of  the  elements.  In  that  case  the 
elements  themselves  would  undergo  an  essential  qualitative 
change;  and  while  the  laws  of  combination  would  remain 
the  same,  the  forces  which  enter  into  combination  would  be 
entirely  different.  "We  may  say  that  if  we  knew  the  com- 
plete law  of  the  elements,  we  could,  even  in  this  case,  deduce 
the  new  order  from  the  old ;  but  this  is  scarcely  more  than 
to  say  that  if  we  knew  what  the  elements  would  do,  we 
could  tell  what  they  would  do.  If  it  is  to  be  more  than  this 
barren  tautology,  we  must  claim  that  the  complete  law  of 
the  elements  is  not  fully  manifested  at  all  times ;  and  we 
must  also  allow  that  the  manifestation  of  this  law  is  such  as 
to  produce  faults  in  the  phenomenal  order ;  that  is,  to  pro- 
duce changes  which  a  study  of  the  previous  phenomena 
would  not  have  revealed.  But  it  is  plain  that  in  making 
this  claim  we  abandon  our  original  aim,  which  wras  to  con- 
nect one  state  of  things  with  the  antecedent  state  of  things 
according  to  laws  learned  from  observation.  In  place  of 
this  claim,  based  on  experience,  we  substitute  another,  based 
on  a  speculative  assumption.  It  is  no  longer  the  laws  we 
know  which  enable  us  to  deduce  the  present  from  the  past, 
but  laws  which  we  assume  we  might  know  if  we  had  stiffi- 


318  METAPHYSICS. 

cient  insight.  Thus  we  assume  a  kind  of  ontological  me- 
chanics back  of  the  phenomenal  mechanics,  and  one  also 
which  is  not  strictly  continuous  in  its  phenomenal  manifes- 
tation. The  difficulties  of  this  notion  have  led  many  to 
claim  that  the  elements  have  but  one  law,  and  that  all  the 
complicated  forms  of  their  activity  are  results  of  that  law. 
But  the  attempt  to  deduce  all  phenomena  from  their  ante- 
cedents according  to  one  law  has  never  succeeded ;  and  vari- 
ous laws  have  still  to  be  accepted  as  facts  which  admit  of  no 
explanation. 

The  disciples  of  the  mechanical  theory  have  been  still 
more  restive  with  reference  to  the  intervention  of  freedom 
in  the  system,  so  as  to  produce  results  which  otherwise  were 
not  there.  Part  of  this  restiveness  has  an  irreligious  root, 
and  as  such  has  no  philosophical  significance.  So  far  as  it 
has  a  rational  basis,  it  consists  in  appealing  to  the  law  of 
continuity,  or  in  declaring  that  such  results  admit  of  no 
scientific  explanation.  But  here  we  must  remind  ourselves 
that  the  law  of  continuity  as  thus  used  is  a  self-evident  axi- 
om only  on  the  atheistic  assumption  of  the  self-sufficiency 
and  independence  of  the  system.  On  the  theistic  theory, 
the  only  continuity  necessary  is  a  continuity  of  plan  and 
purpose,  so  that  all  things  work  together  as  demanded  by 
the  idea  which  is  law-giving  for  the  whole.  But  this  con- 
tinuity is  quite  consistent  with  the  successive  introduction 
of  new  factors,  of  new  modes  of  activity,  and  of  new  forms 
of  existence.  These  would,  indeed,  be  demanded  by  the 
plan  of  the  system,  but  they  would  not  follow  from  the  an- 
tecedent state  of  the  system ;  and  if  experience  or  observa- 
tion should  point  to  such  an  order,  there  is  no  good  reason 
for  objection.  It  is  equally  possible  that  there  should  be  a 
successive  disappearance  of  factors  which  the  plan  of  the 
system  no  longer  calls  for.  Indeed,  it  would  be  hard  to  find 
a  more  baseless  dogma,  philosophically  considered,  than  this, 
that  the  system  must  contain  all  its  factors  complete  and 
changeless  from  the  beginning.  We  must  further  remind 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  319 

ourselves  that  while  a  scientific  explanation  is  desirable,  it 
is  not  the  final  cause  of  the  universe  to  be  scientifically  ex- 
plicable. There  is  a  deeper  interest  in  knowing  the  facts 
than  in  knowing  their  explanation ;  and  no  true  science  can 
have  any  interest  in  viewing  the  facts  other  than  as  they 
are.  Unreal  simplifications  and  explanations  which  do  not 
explain  are  nauseating  to  every  mind  which  has  a  healthy 
sense  of  truth  and  reality.  For  every  believer  in  freedom 
there  are  mental  states  or  acts  which  cannot  be  deduced  from 
the  antecedent  states.  These  are  pure  self-determinations 
which  can  be  understood  in  their  purpose,  but  cannot  be  ex- 
plained in  their  origin.  By  their  very  nature  they  lie  be- 
yond scientific  explanation,  yet  when  they  have  arisen,  they 
then  become  subject  to  the  fundamental  laws  of  mental  ac- 
tion. At  the  basis  of  the  mental  life,  also,  we  meet  with 
elements  which  cannot  be  deduced  from  the  antecedent 
state  of  mind.  These  are  our  sensations,  and  are  contributed 
or  excited  from  without.  But  after  they  have  been  aroused, 
they  then  combine  according  to  certain  laws  inherent  in  the 
nature  of  the  mind.  Hence  the  integrity  of  the  mental 
mechanism  does  not  consist  in  a  self-enclosed  continuity  of 
mental  states,  but  in  the  identity  of  those  laws  which  deter- 
mine the  combination  and  succession  of  mental  states,  wheth- 
er arising  from  interaction  with  the  outer  world  or  from  the 
pure  self-determinations  of  the  mind.  The  same  must  be 
said  of  the  cosmical  mechanism.  Here,  too,  for  every  be- 
liever in  freedom  there  is  much  which  cannot  be  explained 
as  the  result  of  the  antecedent  state  of  the  system.  Human 
thought  and  purpose  have  realized  themselves  in  the  physi- 
cal world,  and  have  produced  effects  which  the  system,  left 
to  itself,  would  never  have  reached. '  A  great  multitude  of 
forms  and  collocations  of  matter  can  be  traced  back  to  hu- 
man volition  guided  by  purpose;  and  beyond  that  they  have 
no  representation  whatever.  These  interventions,  however, 
have  violated  no  mechanical  necessity  and  no  laws  of  nature. 
They  arise  from  the  introduction  of  a  new  force  or  ante- 


320  METAPHYSICS. 

cedent,  and  the  resultant  changes  accordingly.  The  new 
force  which  thus  enters  into  the  problem  cannot  be  scien- 
tifically explained ;  but  the  same  is  true  for  all  the  other 
forces.  They,  too,  are  simply  facts  to  be  admitted,  not  com- 
prehended. But  even  in  this  case  the  reign  of  law  is  un- 
broken. The  will  itself  is  subject  to  the  parallelogram  of 
forces,  and  produces  effects  according  to  its  intensity.  And 
the  effect  produced  enters  at  once  into  the  great  web  of  law, 
and  is  combined  with  other  effects  according  to  a  common 
scheme.  Hence  the  integrity  of  the  cosmic  mechanism  also 
consists  not  in  a  self-enclosed  movement,  but  in  the  subjec- 
tion of  all  interaction  of  its  members  to  the  same  general 
laws.  This  fact  of  general  modes  of  procedure,  or  of  fixed 
rules  of  interaction,  is  the  vital  feature  of  the  mechanical 
doctrine.  The  conception  of  mechanism  as  incapable  of 
taking  up  new  impulses  or  new  factors,  and  subjecting  them 
to  a  common  order  of  law,  is  borrowed  entirely  from  our 
experience  with  the  coarsest  of  human  inventions.  The 
cosmic  mechanism  is  able  to  receive  the  greatest  variety  of 
impulses  from  without,  and  to  combine  them  with  the  past 
according  to  fixed  laws.  Only  in  this  way  does  it  become 
adapted  to  the  use  of  intelligence  at  all.  Whether  it  is  pos- 
sible for  man  thus  to  modify  the  system,  and  produce  results 
which  the  system  of  itself  could  not  reach,  is  simply  a  mat- 
ter for  experience  to  determine.  It  may  be  urged  that  even 
then  there  may  be  a  deeper  mechanism  determining  both 
man  and  nature,  so  that,  after  all,  results  still  flow  with  neces- 
sity from  their  complete  antecedents;  but  this  is  to  abandon 
a  scientific  doctrine  for  a  speculative  one ;  and,  moreover,  as 
shown  in  a  previous  chapter,  it  would  lead  to  the  overthrow 
of  all  science  and  rationality. 

Thus  far  we  have  dealt  with  the  mechanical  theory  in 
general  as  a  principle  of  method,  and  have  discovered  both 
its  necessity  and  its  limitations.  Its  essential  feature  is  the 
assumption  of  fixed  elementary  modes  of  procedure  which 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  321 

combine  according  to  general  laws  in  the  production  of 
complex  results.  But  it  cannot  Lave  escaped  our  attention 
that  there  is  a  very  great  difference  in  the  character  of  the 
observed  laws.  Some  laws  are  transparent;  not,  indeed,  in 
their  origin,  but  in  their  consequences.  Such  are  pre-emi- 
nently the  law  of  gravity  and  the  principles  of  mechanics. 
Assuming  these  to  be  true,  it  is  easy  to  deduce  their  results 
as  rational  necessities.  The  process  is  transparent,  and  the 
mind  is  satisfied.  This  is  not  so  clearly  the  case  when  we 
come  to  the  principles  of  chemistry  and  the  other  molecular 
forces.  Here  there  is  reason  for  believing  that  a  perfect 
insight  would  enable  us  to  connect  the  antecedents  with  the 
consequents  with  the  same  rational  necessity.  But  when 
we  come  to  the  laws  of  life  this  insight  fails  entirely.  We 
do  find  that  certain  vital  phenomena  attend  certain  physical 
phenomena,  but  the  connection  is  simply  a  fact  of  observa- 
tion. No  knowledge  which  we  possess  of  the  physical  ante- 
cedents enables  us  to  deduce  the  vital  consequents.  The 
facts  of  reproduction,  of  heredity,  and  the  general  connec- 
tion of  mind  and  body,  are  of  the  same  sort.  A  general 
order  of  law  is  perceptible,  but  it  is  impossible  rationally  to 
connect  the  facts  with  their  physical  antecedents.  Hence 
we  cannot  proceed  deductively,  but  must  leave  the  facts 
standing  side  by  side,  uncertain  whether  we  have  a  dynamic 
and  logical  sequence,  or  only  a  concurrence  of  two  different 
realms.  On  all  these  accounts  many  have  decided  to  limit 
the  mechanical  theory  to  the  mathematical  interpretation  of 
nature.  In  any  case  it  has  its  chief  application  in  the  study 
of  physical  phenomena.  Hereafter  wo  limit  ourselves  to 
this  realm,  and  inquire  in  what  sense  a  mathematical  inter- 
pretation of  nature  is  possible. 

The  ideal  of  the  mathematician  would  be  reached  if  it 
were  possible  to  deduce  every  phenomenal  consequent  from 
its  phenomenal  antecedent.  Thus  we  may  suppose  that  in 
the  nebulous  time  the  elements  were  moving  under  the  in- 
fluence of  gravity  alone.  It  is  entirely  conceivable  that  all 
21 


322  METAPHYSICS. 

the  circumstances  of  their  motion  should  have  been  ex- 
pressed in  a  vast  series  of  equations.  Now  the  mathemat- 
ical ideal  would  demand  that,  by  varying  the  time  in  these 
equations,  we  should  see  all  the  new  forms  and  laws  of  force 
arise  as  rational  implications  of  that  early  state.  This  would 
demand  that  all  the  various  forms  of  force,  as  affinity  and 
cohesion,  and  all  the  various  forms  of  energy,  as  heat  and 
electricity,  should  be  but  complex  implications  of  gravity. 
This,  however,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  previous  chapter,  can- 
not be  done.  K"o  one  force  is  fundamental,  but  various  laws 
of  force  have  to  be  assumed.  Hence  the  series  of  equations 
which  express  the  circumstances  of  the  elements'  motion  ac- 
cording to  some  single  law  will  not  suffice  for  the  complete 
determination  of  the  future.  For  this  perfect  insight  it 
would  be  necessary  to  combine  this  series  with  still  other 
series,  which  should  express  results  of  the  other  forces  which 
must  be  assumed.  If  this  were  done,  then  a  perfect  intelli- 
gence could  doubtless  read  off  the  future  of  the  system  so 
far  as  it  was  not  modified  from  without.  But  these  high 
considerations  are  of  no  practical  value.  The  human  mind 
is  not  able  to  rise  to  this  perfect  insight.  Hence,  while  we 
think  of  this  possibility  as  the  ideal  goal  of  cosmological 
knowledge,  in  practice  we  have  to  confine  ourselves  to  de- 
tails and  detached  problems.  In  practice  the  mechanical 
theory  reduces  to  the  claim  that  all  the  phenomena  of  ma- 
terial compounds  can  be  explained  by  the  interaction  and 
properties  of  their  components.  We  have  now  to  inquire 
in  what  sense  this  is  true. 

A  common  prejudice  against  the  mechanical  theory  of 
nature  is  due  to  a  confusion  of  abstract  mechanics  with  the 
system  of  reality.  But  theoretical  mechanics  is  based  on  a 
series  of  unreal  abstractions.  Since  explanation  aims  to  con- 
struct the  complex  from  the  simple,  it  must  necessarily  aim 
to  reach  the  simplest  case.  Without  this  its  constructions 
would  not  be  fundamental.  But  the  simplest  case  is  always 
a  feigned  and  unreal  one.  There  are  no  absolutely  rigid 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  323 

lines  or  bodies  in  nature.  The  perfectly  flexible  cord  and 
frictionless  pulley  are  both  products  of  abstraction.  These 
are  the  unreal  simplifications  of  theory,  and  yet  without 
them  theory  would  be  impossible.  We  must  first  compute 
the  result  for  the  imaginary  case  before  we  can  deal  with 
the  real  case,  for  the  real  case  can  be  understood  only  as  a 
departure  from  the  simple  case.  Accordingly,  we  form  the 
abstractions  of  rigid  lines,  homogeneous  bodies,  flexible  and 
inextensible  cords,  vacua,  etc. ;  and  afterwards  we  add  con- 
siderations of  friction,  resistance,  stiffness,  etc.,  as  so  many 
additional  forces,  whose  effect  is  to  be  computed  according 
to  the  laws  which  govern  the  simple  and  unreal  case.  Mat- 
ter is  one  of  these  abstractions.  It  appears  in  mechanics  as 
the  solid  and  inert  subject  of  motion ;  as  totally  indifferent 
to  its  changing  conditions,  and  as  everywhere  the  same. 
These  abstractions  serve  the  purpose  of  the  mechanical  the- 
orist, and  he  is  not  called  upon  to  consider  their  metaphysi- 
cal significance.  But  when  they  are  mistaken  for  realities, 
then  it  is  time  to  call  a  halt.  This  is  the  source  of  the 
notion  that  a  mechanical  process  is  necessarily  a  monotone. 
The  abstractions  of  matter,  motion,  and  force  are  monoto- 
nous enough ;  but  reality,  while  represented  by  them,  must 
never  be  confounded  with  them.  The  forces  and  motions 
which  arise  between  things  are  never  ultimate  facts,  but 
only  expressions  of  a  system  of  changes  in  things.  And 
this  metaphysical  system  •  of  internal  changes  lies  below 
mechanism  as  its  condition.  Mechanism  has  not  to  con- 
strue the  forces  which  thus  arise,  but  to  find  their  resultant 
after  they  have  arisen. 

This  fact  enables  us  to  transcend  the  common  notion  that 
the  mechanical  view  of  nature  provides  only  for  a  monoto- 
nous repetition  of  an  identical  process.  It  is  urged,  for  ex- 
ample, that  mechanics  cannot  explain  even  chemistry;  and 
this  is  true  if  it  mean  that  mechanics  cannot  explain  chemi- 
cal affinity.  But  no  intelligent  disciple  of  the  mechanical 
theory  proposes  to  do  this.  So  far  as  the  inner  nature  of 


321  METAPHYSICS. 

things  manifests  itself  in  a  redistribution  of  matter  through 
motion,  the  process  is  necessarily  identical.  Motion,  how- 
ever produced,  is  always  the  same  in  nature,  and  gives  no 
hint  of  any  qualitative  differences  in  the  forces  which  cause 
it.  A  motion  arising  from  will  would  be  in  no  respect  dif- 
ferent from  a  motion  arising  from  the  interaction  of  the  ele- 
ments. Motion  is  the  common  field  on  which  the  various 
incommensurable  forces  of  the  elements  meet  and  exchange 
effects ;  but  the  forces  themselves  may  remain  as  separate 
and  distinct  as  ever.  There  is  nothing,  then,  in  the  me- 
chanical theory,  to  forbid  the  greatest  qualitative  unlikeness 
among  the  forces  which  enter  into  the -process.  But  these 
forces  do  not  exist  for  the  theory,  except  as  moving  forces ; 
and  it  claims  that,  as  moving  forces,  they  are  subject  to  the 
general  laws  of  mechanics.  In  the  case  of  gravity,  we  have 
a  purely  monotonous  process;  in  chemistry,  we  have  a  qual- 
itative and  selective  process.  But  no  one  can  doubt  that 
the  motions  which  arise  from  chemical  affinity  are  as  truly 
subject  to  the  laws  of  motion  as  are  the  movements  of  the 
planets.  Ko  more  is  there  any  room  to  doubt  that  the  prop- 
erties of  the  molecule  are  due  to  the  properties  of  the  com- 
ponents as  they  exist  in  the  compound.  There  is,  then,  not 
the  least  ground  for  viewing  chemical  action  as  less  mechan- 
ical than  that  of  gravity.  Again,  in  cohesion  and  crystal- 
lization many  have  thought  to  find  effects  more  than  me- 
chanical. Here,  it  is  said,  we  have  a  building  force  which 
transcends  mechanism.  But  mechanics,  we  repeat,  is  not 
concerned  with  the  character  of  its  forces,  but  only  with 
their  resultant ;  and,  however  marvellous  the  interacting 
forces  of  the  crystallizing  elements  may  be,  there  is  no  room 
to  doubt  that  each  element  moves  to  its  place  in  accordance 
•with  mechanical  laws.  The  source  of  the  objection  to  view- 
ing these  effects  as  mechanical,  so  far  as  it  is  rational,  is  in 
mistaking  the  non-qualitative  abstractions  of  theoretical  me- 
chanics for  facts.  Because  these  show  no  distinctions  of 
quality,  it  is  assumed  that  the  reality  which  we  seek  to  grasp 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  325 

by  their  aid  shows  no  such  differences.  But  this  notion  dis- 
appears when  we  reflect  that  mechanics  does  not  inquire 
into  the  source  of  its  forces,  but  only  into  their  resultant. 
As  an  extreme  illustration  of  this,  so  far  as  the  will  enters 
into  the  physical  realm  as  a  moving  force,  it  is  as  subject  to 
the  parallelogram  of  forces  as  the  physical  elements  them- 
selves. The  mechanical  theory,  then,  is  not  inconsistent 
with  the  utmost  variety  in  natural  agents  and  effects.  The 
desire  to  reduce  everything  to  a  single  process — say  a  vibra- 
tion, or  to  a  single  law,  say  gravity,  or  to  a  single  depart- 
ment, say  physics — is  no  necessary  part  of  the  theory,  but  is 
rather  the  outcome  of  a  blind  desire  for  unity,  which  also 
mistakes  unity  for  all-alikeness.  But  when  we  limit  the  me- 
chanical theory,  as  we  must,  to  determining  the  resultants 
of  given  forces,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  at  once  uni- 
versal and  secondary  in  its  significance.  It  expresses,  sim- 
ply, the  form  and  laws  of  an  interaction  which  it  does  not 
profess  to  found.  This  interaction  cannot  be  scientifically 
or  mechanically  explained.  We  must  either  admit  it  as  an 
opaque  fact,  or  else  resort  to  a  teleological  explanation,  and 
find  its  reason  in  the  purpose  for  whose  expression  and  real- 
ization the  system  exists. 

"We  find  no  reason  for  denying  that  all  inorganic  changes 
are  subject  to  mechanical  laws,  so. far  as  anything  is  so  sub- 
ject. Does  the  same  subjection  exist  for  that  redistribution 
of  matter  which  takes  place  in  the  construction  of  organized 
bodies?  Again,  there  is  no  reason  for  denying  that  in  any 
inorganic  compound  the  properties  depend  upon  the  prop- 
erties of  the  component  elements.  Can  the  same  be  said  of 
those  material  complexes  which  we  call  organisms  ? 

The  question  as  to  the  mechanical  or  non-mechanical  ex- 
planation of  life  has  commonly  been  unclearly  conceived, 
and,  in  particular,  the  mechanical  view  has  been  largely 
misunderstood.  Two  questions  are  to  be  distinguished; 
(1)  the  cause  of  organization,  and  the  ground  of  the  peculiar 


326  METAPHYSICS. 

properties  of  organisms;  and,  (2),  the  subject  of  the  appar- 
ent mental  life  which,  in  some  degree,  the  animals  gener- 
ally manifest.  We  consider  them  in  their  order. 

So  far  as  analysis  goes,  every  organism  can  be  resolved 
into  elements,  all  of  which  are  found  in  the  inorganic  state. 
It  appears  as  a  highly  complex  material  aggregate,  with 
peculiar  laws  and  with  a  peculiar  unity  of  its  own.  Besides, 
the  freest  use  is  made  in  the  organism  of  laws  and  principles 
which  obtain  in  the  inorganic  realm.  Oxidation  is  resorted 
to  for  heat.  Osmosis  assists  in  the  purification  of  the  blood. 
In  the  veins  and  arteries  we  have  an  elaborate  system  of 
tubing  for  conveying  the  blood  to  and  from  the  various 
parts  of  the  body.  The  laws  of  the  pump,  of  elastic  tubes, 
and  of  capillary  attraction  play  an  important  part  in  this 
matter.  In  the  muscles  and  bones,  again,  we  have  a  most 
elaborate  system  of  levers.  The  entire  body,  indeed,  seems 
to  be  a  very  complex  aggregate  of  physical  and  chemical 
processes.  Everywhere  we  find  the  same  laws  with  which 
we  are  elsewhere  familiar.  There  is  no  dispute  on  this 
point ;  but  it  is  claimed  that  we  need  some  principle  of 
unity  to  explain  the  union  of  the  processes,  and  especially 
to  explain  the  construction  of  the  organism.  The  question, 
then,  becomes,  Can  we  explain  the  construction  of  the  organ- 
ism by  mechanical  forces,  or  must  we  assume  some  new  and 
special  force  ? 

This  question  betrays  the  misunderstanding  of  the  me- 
chanical theory  which  is  common  to  both  its  defenders  and 
its  opponents.  There  *is  no  such  thing  as  mechanical  forces, 
but  only  mechanical  outcomes  from  given  forces.  The 
forces  themselves  are  metaphysical,  and  may  be  made  as 
mysterious  as  we  please.  It  is  further  urged  that  no  action 
of  physical  and  chemical  forces  can  explain  organization ; 
but  this  overlooks  the  nature  of  force  in  general.  We  have 
pointed  out  that  no  thing  has  separate  forces,  and  that  the 
forces  are  only  expressions  of  the  relations  of  the  elements. 
In  certain  relations,  there  are  attractions  and  repulsions 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  327 

which  we  call  physical ;  in  certain  others,  there  are  attrac- 
tions, etc.,  which  we  call  chemical.  In  still  other  relations, 
magnetic  and  electric  qualities  are  manifested.  But  in 
every  such  case,  the  force  is  not  the  manifestation  of  hidden 
powers  in  the  thing,  but  only  a  new  activity  corresponding 
to  the  new  relation.  Forces,  then,  are  not  fixed  quantities, 
but  vary  both  in  quantity  and  quality,  according  to  the  re- 
lations of  things.  The  possibilities  of  the  elements  depend 
upon  their  conditions.  When  the  conditions  of  gravitation 
only  are  fulfilled,  simple  quantitative  attraction  is  the  only 
result.  When  other  conditions  are  fulfilled,  the  elements 
acquire  new  forces,  and  new  phenomena  appear.  Now, 
when  we  remember  that  the  elements  themselves  are  no 
rigid  points  endowed  with  changeless  forces,  but  acquire 
new  forces  according  to  their  relations  to  one  another,  we 
see  that  the  mechanical  theory  has  not  to  explain  organiza- 
tion by  physical,  chemical,  -or  electric  forces,  but  by  those 
forces  which  the  elements  have  when  organization  takes 
place.  For  this  theory  in  its  best  form  does  not  claim  that 
physics  or  chemistry  explain  life ;  they  explain  nothing  but 
physics  and  chemistry.  The  theory  only  claims  that  just 
as  the  elements  in  certain  relations  manifest  physical  and 
chemical  properties,  so  in  certain  other  relations  they  mani- 
fest vital  properties.  But  just  as  the  properties  of  an  inor- 
ganic atomic  or  molecular  complex  depend  on  the  properties 
of  the  constituent  elements,  so  the  properties  of  an  organic 
molecular  complex  depend  on  the  properties  of  the  constit- 
uent atoms.  The  mechanical  theory,  therefore,  can  assume 
a  vital  force  with  just  the  same  right  as  it  does  a  chemical 
force.  Indeed,  it  must  assume  both,  but  both  in  the  same 
sense.  To  explain  gravitation,  it  assumes  a  peculiar  endow- 
ment of  the  elements  and  calls  it  gravity.  To  explain 
chemical  action,  it  assumes  another  peculiar  endowment  of 
the  atoms  and  calls  it  affinity.  So  also  to  explain  vital 
phenomena,  it  assumes  again  a  peculiar  endowment  of  the 
elements  and  calls  it  vitality.  These  several  -ities  all  stand 


328  METAPHYSICS. 

on  the  same  basis.  They  are  all  alike  necessary  and  are  all 
alike  but  abstractions  from  the  several  formes  of  atomic  in- 
teraction. Many  upholders  of  vitalism  surrender  at  this 
point.  They  think  it  sufficient  to  point  out  that  the  ele- 
ments, as  capable  of  only  physical  and  chemical  manifesta- 
tion, are  inadequate  to  vital  manifestation,  and  that  hence 
we  must  posit  a  new  endowment  to  account  for  the  new 
manifestation.  This  is  true  enough,  and  follows  as  a  matter 
of  definition ;  but  as  long  as  the  new  endowment  is  posited 
in  the  physical  elements,  and  not  in  some  separate  agent,  we 
still  hold  the  mechanical  theory.  Physics  and  chemistry 
do  not  explain  even  magnetism ;  but  we  never  dream  that 
magnetism  is  something  independent  of  the  elements;  we 
regard  it  simply  as  a  manifestation  of  the  nature  of  the  ele- 
ments under  peculiar  circumstances.  Ko  one  denies  vitality 
as  a  mode  of  agency;  the  dispute  is  over  vitality  as  an  agent. 
All  the  other  -ities  are  forms  of  agency,  and  the  mechanical 
theorist  holds  that  vitality  is  no  more.  The  agents  are  the 
physical  elements  in  every  case. 

The  mechanical  theory  is  at  least  clear  in  its  meaning,  if 
not  in  its  possibility.  The  thought  is  formally  complete. 
It  speaks  of  activities,  forces,  and  endowments,  and  names 
their  subjects.  The  opposing  view  is  far  from  being  either 
clear  or  complete.  It  speaks  much  of  forces  without  speci- 
fying their  subject,  and  thus  leaves  us  without  any  complete 
thought.  A  good  instance  of  this  is  found  in  the  work  on 
the  Human  Species  by  M.  de  Quatrefages.  The  author  dis- 
tinguishes various  forms  of  force  as  gravity,  "  ethero-dyna- 
my,"  and  life ;  and  posits  them  all  alike  as  the  "  unknown 
cause "  of  their  phenomena.  But  we  are  not  informed 
whether  the  unknown  cause  be  an  agent  or  only  a  quality. 
In  a  proper  use  of  language,  a  force  is  not  the  cause  of  any- 
thing ;  but  the  active  thing  itself  is  the  cause.  It  is  hardly 
possible  that*Quatrefages  meant  to  regard  gravity  as  a  real 
agent  working  on  the  elements,  and  not  a  quality  of  the  ele- 
ments themselves.  Gravity,  indeed,  is  a  form  of  agency 


TUE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  329 

only ;  and  for  all  that  he  says,  life  also  may  be  viewed  as 
a  mode  of  atomic  agency.  To  make  the  view  clear,  we 
must  be  told  whether  this  unknown  cause  be  an  agent  sep- 
arate from  the  elements,  or  whether  it  be  only  a  peculiar 
quality  of  the  elements  themselves.  We  should  further 
need  to  know  how  this  unknown  cause,  which  is  named  as 
one  and  singular,  should  manifest  itself  so  diversely.  To 
refer  everything  to  life,  from  the  plant-spore  to  man,  is  to 
give  us  a  general  term  instead  of  an  explanation. 

On  both  of  these  points  the  defenders  of  vitalism  fall  into 
fundamental  unclearness.  They  fail  to  tell  how  from  uni- 
versal and  singular  life  diverse  and  manifold  lives  arise. 
They  also  neglect  to  say  whether  vitality  is  a  quality  in  the 
elements  which  conditions  their  agency,  or  whether  it  is  an 
agent.  Most  of  the  arguments  for  vitality  go  no  further 
than  the  maintenance  of  the  former  position.  Many,  indeed, 
of  those  who  hold  that  life  was  supernaturally  introduced 
into  the  world,  fail  to  escape  the  mechanical  theory.  They 
speak  of  certain  of  the  elements  as  being  "  originally  en- 
dowed with  vitality,"  and  from  them  life  has  spread.  But 
this  mode  of  speech  contemplates  the  endowment  as  a  qual- 
ity, and  it  further  assumes  that  by  some  kind  of  catalytic 
action  other  elements  also  become  endowed.  It  does  not 
regard  the  endowment  as  a  thing,  for  then  the  elements 
would  not  have  been  endowed ;  but  a  new  agent  would  have 
been  created.  Now  if  this  original  endowment  was  not  crea- 
tive, it  follows  that  the  later  elements  have  acquired  the  en- 
dowment, jnst  as  they  acquire  the  endowment  of  any  other 
force — namely,  by  coming  into  peculiar  conditions  corre- 
sponding to  which  new  powers  are  developed.  In  that  case 
life  would  not  control  chemical  affinity,  nor  would  affinity 
account  for  life ;  but  both  vital  and  chemical  action  would 
represent  the  peculiar  activity  of  the  elements  under  the 
corresponding  conditions.  But  this  again  would  be  the  very 
essence  of  the  mechanical  theory,  and  would  represent  life 
as  simply  an  allotropic  form  of  matter.  The  mechanical 


330  METAPHYSICS. 

theory  has  in  no  way  to  burden  itself  with  the  doctrine  of 
spontaneous  generation.  The  fact  that  dead  matter  can  be- 
come living  matter  only  under  the  influence  of  other  living 
matter,  does  not  prove  that  the  qualities  of  living  matter, 
when  it  is  formed,  do  not  depend  on  the  peculiar  qualities 
of  the  elements  which  constitute  it.  If  spontaneous  genera- 
tion were  revealed  to  be  false,  it  would  not  overthrow  the 
true  mechanical  theory  of  life.  It  is  greatly  to  be  wished 
that  the  opponents  of  this  theory  would  be  at  the  pains  to 
understand  it.  The  great  source  of  their  trouble  is  the  fail- 
ure to  see  that  matter  and  force,  as  conceived  in  theoretical 
mechanics,  are  pure  abstractions,  and  that  the  real  forces  of 
the  elements  spring  from  their  inner  qualitative  nature. 
Accordingly,  they  seek  to  understand  how  a  series  of  rigid, 
quantitative  lumps  could  build  up  an  organism  by  merely 
pulling  and  pushing,  or  knocking  against,  one  another.  Of 
course  they  fail ;  for  the  task  represents  a  myth  of  abstrac- 
tion. But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  allowed  that  the 
mechanical  theory  has  often  been  presented  in  this  way; 
and  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  get  life  from  matter  as 
thus  conceived.  Concerning  this  view,  Prof.  Tyndall,  who, 
at  one  time  at  least,  found  the  promise  and  potency  of  life 
in  matter,  remarks  that  any  other  view  whatever  would  be 
preferable,  and  stigmatizes  it  as  absurd  and  monstrous,  and 
fit  only  for  the  intellectual  gibbet. 

We  take  a  germ  ;  what  is  it  ?  Analysis  finds  in  it  several 
chemical  elements,  and  nothing  more.  Is  there  anything 
more?  Without  doubt  the  elements,  as  combined  in  the 
germ,  have  properties  which  they  have  nowhere  else ;  but  is 
there  anything  else  ?  Is  this  living  condition  anything  but 
one  of  the  possible  phases  of  matter  alone  ?  The  elements, 
when  combined  to  form  water,  have  peculiar  properties 
which  they  never  have  elsewhere ;  but  there  is  nothing  but 
the  elements.  No  one  doubts  that  the  elements  in  the  germ 
have  peculiar  properties ;  the  question  is  to  find  their  sub- 
ject. To  say  that  life  is  in  the  germ  is  vague,  for  it  may 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  331 

be  there  merely  as  a  property  of  the  elements,  as  in  the  case 
of  affinity,  and  it  may  be  there  as  a  separate  agent.  The 
first  view  makes  the  elements  the  real  agents,  and  coincides 
with  the  mechanical  theory.  The  organism  in  this  case  re- 
sults from  the  interaction  of  these  elements  with  one  an- 
other and  with  surrounding  matter,  and  its  properties  are 
explained  by  theirs.  Such  a  view  cannot  at  least  be  declared 
impossible.  It  is  a  possible  view  that  a  germ  consists  simply 
of  certain  physical  elements  in  an  allotropic  state,  and  that 
these  elements  in  the  proper  conditions  begin  an  interaction 
with  one  another  and  with  environing  elements,  such  that 
the  product  is  the  appropriate  organism.  There  would  be 
a  redistribution  of  matter,  and  this  would  be  ruled  by  the 
laws  of  motion. 

This  view  we  mention  as  possible ;  but,  in  order  to  make 
it  sufficient,  we  have  to  add  some  rather  peculiar  assump- 
tions. If  organisms  were  all  of  a  kind,  or  had  anything 
like  a  common  form,  it  would  be  comparatively  easy  to  ac- 
cept the  belief  that  the  physical  elements  which  compose  a 
germ,  together  with  those  in  contact  with  it,  are  the  only 
agents  concerned.  But  the  forms  and  qualities  of  organ- 
isms are  of  the  most  diverse  kinds,  while  the  component 
elements  are  all  of  a  kind.  Hence  it  seems  as  if  the  ele- 
ments, because  able  to  enter  into  any  organic  form,  were  in- 
different to  all  organic  forms.  If  there  were  only  one  form, 
we  might  speak  of  a  "subtle  tendency"  in  the  elements  to 
that  form,  or  of  an  "affinity"  or  "inherent  aptitude"  for  it. 
But  when  they  assume  all  organic  forms,  we  must  either 
make  them  as  indifferent  to  those  forms  as  the  bricks  which 
are  built  into  a  variety  of  structures  are  to  the  plan  of  those 
structures,  or  we  must  endow  them  with  a  great  variety  of 
"  subtle  tendencies  "  and  "  inherent  aptitudes."  In  the  for- 
mer case,  the  variety  and  constancy  of  form  seems  to  be  a 
matter  of  chance  or  accident;  for  the  matter  contains  no 
principle  of  organic  form.  Yet  the  second  case  reduces  to 
the  first,  for  these  tendencies  are  mutually  exclusive  in  real- 


332  METAPHYSICS. 

ization,  and  the  elements  have  in  themselves  no  ground  for 
realizing  one  set  of  tendencies  rather  than  another.  The 
coexistence  of  the  tendencies  does  not  explain  the  selection. 
Hence,  in  each  case,  we  have  to  fall  back  on  the  arbitrary 
constants  which  enter  into  the  equation.  As  the  laws  of 
motion  are  consistent  with  all  motions,  so  the  elements  in 
general  are  adapted  to  all  forms.  The  ground  of  direction, 
then,  is  to  be  sought  in  the  conditions  under  which  they 
work.  Under  given  conditions,  they  can  build  only  a  given 
organism.  But  these  conditions,  again,  must  lie  very  deep. 
If  they  were  merely  general  conditions,  germs  might  be 
interchanged ;  whereas,  two  seeds  grow  side  by  side,  and 
each  to  its  typical  form.  The  germ  itself  contains  implic- 
itly all  the  differences  which  become  explicit  in  the  organ- 
ism. But  these  differences  are  so  many  and  great  that  no 
one  would  pretend  to  represent  them  by  difference  of  spa- 
tial collocation  of  the  elements  which  compose  the  germ. 
Such  collocation  would  explain  nothing,  unless  it  were  at- 
tended with  peculiar  forces.  Here  we  may  fall  back  on  the 
conception  of  subtle  tendencies  which  are,  in  some  way,  lo- 
cated in  the  germ.  This  notion  has  been  formulated  in  the 
doctrine  of  "  physiological  units,"  each  of  which  has  the 
power  of  reproducing  the  organism  under  appropriate  con- 
ditions. But,  unfortunately,  even  this  notion  is  not  as  clear 
as  could  be  wished.  It  attributes  the  tendencies  to  the 
germ,  and  forgets  that,  by  hypothesis,  the  germ  is  a  com- 
pound of  elements.  The  tendency,  therefore,  no  matter 
how  "  subtle,"  belongs  to  the  elements  which  compose  the 
germ.  And,  without  doubt,  this  tendency  is  very  subtle, 
for  it  is  really  an  implicit  expression  of  the  plan  of  the  or- 
ganism. It  implies,  then,  that,  under  certain  conditions,  the 
elements  act  with  constant  reference  to  the  plan  of  an  or- 
ganism ;  and  under  certain  other  conditions,  precisely  simi- 
lar elements  act  with  reference  to  the  plan  of  some  other 
organism.  If  we  should  see  a  pile  of  bricks  moving  so  as 
to  build  a  given  house,  we  should  probably  conclude  that 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  333 

some  invisible  builder  was  present ;  but,  if  we  declined  this 
view,  the  very  least  we  could  say  would  be,  that  the  plan  of 
the  house  is  implicit  in  the  bricks,  and  that  their  activities 
are  all  put  forth  with  reference  to  this  plan.  If  we  should 
refuse  this  admission,  then  the  house -building  would  be 
purely  a  chance-product — a  coincidence  of  moving  bricks. 
But  if,  in  addition  to  building  a  single  kind  of  house,  we 
should  see  them  assuming  all  possible  architectural  forms, 
we  should  be  forced  either  to  appeal  to  chance  or  to  admit 
that  the  bricks  contain  in  themselves  the  plans  of  all  possible 
combinations.  But  reason  can  allow  no  appeals  to  chance, 
and  hence  we  conclude  that,  to  make  the  elements  adequate 
to  the  explanation  of  organisms,  we  must  assume  that  the 
plans  of  all  organisms  are  implicitly  given  in  the  nature  of 
the  elements,  and  so  given  that,  when  they  begin  building 
upon  a  certain  plan,  they  forsake  all  others,  and  cleave  to  it 
alone.  The  action  is  still  mechanical,  but,  in  this  action, 
the  mystic  nature  of  the  elements  unfolds  itself,  so  that  or- 
ganisms result. 

This  conviction  has  led  many  speculators  to  assume  that 
life  is  a  property  of  all  matter,  which  manifests  itself,  how- 
ever, only  under  appropriate  conditions.  Even  this  view, 
however,  fails  to  account  for  the  variety  of  living  things. 
Life  itself  is  a  general  term ;  the  reality  is  a  multitude  of 
living  things,  with  the  most  diverse  forms  and  properties. 
Life,  then,  conceived  as  universal  and  identical,  contains  no 
account  of  the  diverse  and  singular.  To  explain  these,  we 
must  once  more  fall  back  on  the  peculiar  conditions,  and 
these  again  can  be  explained  only  by  life  itself.  Thus  we 
are  perpetually  driven  back  and  forth  from  qualities  to  con- 
ditions, and  from  conditions  to  qualities,  in  a  very  confusing 
fashion.  This  view  can  hardly  be  called  satisfactory.  Its 
subtle  tendencies  can  hardly  be  distinguished  from  ancient 
hylozoism,  and,  oddly  enough,  it  has  a  peculiar  difficulty  for 
the  evolutionist.  By  reducing  life  to  a  quality  of  the  ele- 
ments, it  gives  it  a  fixed  significance  like  all  the  other 


33i  METAPHYSICS. 

qualities ;  and  thus  the  forms  of  life  acquire  a  fixity,  not  to 
say  rigidity,  which  is  quite  inconsistent  with  the  plasticity 
demanded  by  the  evolution  theory.  Physical  and  chemical 
qualities  are  regarded  as  manifestations  of  what  the  elements 
are  and  always  have  been  ;  and  when  life  is  made  a  quality, 
it  also  ought  to  be  equally  fixed  and  changeless  in  its  mani- 
festation. "We  can  escape  this  difficulty  only  by  saying  that 
the  elements  themselves  are  included  in  an  inner  evolution, 
whereby  new  properties  are  acquired,  and  that  these  result 
in  their  working  on  new  and  higher  organic  plans.  But  this 
view  in  turn  would  be  hard  to  reconcile  with  the  known 
physical  and  chemical  fixity  of  the  elements.  To  combine 
both  the  constancy  and  the  plasticity,  we  must  assume  a  fixity 
for  the  physical  and  chemical  relations  of  the  elements,  while 
their  vital  relations  are  left  highly  variable  and  almost  un- 
determined. Some  peculiar  principle  of  movement  must  be 
assumed  in  the  elements,  whereby  they  determine  new  and 
more  complex  conditions,  and  thus  produce  new  and  higher 
forms  of  life. 

We  have  confined  our  attention  thus  far  to  the  single 
problem  of  organization,  and  we  have  found  it  impossible 
to  explain  it  by  the  interaction  of  the  physical  elements 
without  very  greatly  modifying  our  notion  of  matter.  It 
may  be  well  to  try  the  theory  of  vital  force.  All  theories 
which  make  this  force  a  quality  of  the  elements  coincide 
essentially  with  the  mechanical  doctrine.  Shall  we  do  any 
better  with  the  view  which  makes  life  an  agent  which  is 
separate  from  the  physical  elements,  but  which  builds  them 
into  form  ?  Life  would  thus  appear  as  the  builder  of  organ- 
isms, and  matter  would  appear  as  simple  material.  This 
view  doubtless  derives  a  great  part  of  its  clearness  and  suffi- 
ciency from  the  analogy  of  man's  constructive  activities.  In 
itself,  it  is  unclear  without  some  further  determinations.  Is 
this  agent  one  or  many  ?  Is  it  the  same  life  which  works  in 
all  organisms,  plants  and  animals  alike,  or  is  there  a  separate 
vital  agent  in  each  one  ?  In  the  former  case,  how  does  this 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  335 

% 

agent  distinguish  between  the  plans  of  the  different  organ- 
isms which  it  is  constructing  all  around  the  globe  at  the 
same  time  ?  The  readiest  answer  would  be  that  it  is  intelli- 
gent ;  but  this  would  go  a  long  way  towards  confounding  it 
with  God.  If  we  decline  this  view,  and  say  that  the  agent 
works  differently  in  different  conditions,  it  is  still  necessary 
that  it  in  some  way  be  affected  by  the  conditions  in  order 
to  respond  with  the  appropriate  activity.  But  as  by  hy- 
pothesis the  agent  is  not  intelligent,  we  must  posit  a  neces- 
sary interaction  between  it  and  the  elements,  and  the  results 
of  this  interaction  must  be  mechanically  determined ;  that 
is,  it  must  be  the  product  of  the  elements'  action  into  the 
activity  of  the  agent  according  to  some  fixed  law.  If,  how- 
ever, we  prefer  to  view  the  vital  agent  as  many,  and  posit  a 
separate  subject  in  each  organism,  the  question  first  arises 
as  to  the  origin  of  this  swarm  of  agents.  The  reality  is  no 
longer  singular  and  universal  life,  but  discrete  individual 
lives ;  and  these  lives  must  have  some  source.  But  suppos- 
ing this  question  answered,  this  life  must  enter  into  inter- 
action with  the  elements.  It  must  both  modify  and  be 
modified  by  the  matter  with  which  it  is  in  contact.  But 
thus  it  appears  simply  as  one  more  agent;  and  the  product 
of  its  interaction  with  the  elements  must  be  determined  by 
mechanical  laws.  As  an  organizing  force,  it  must  be  a  mov- 
ing force,  and  hence  subject  to  the  laws  of  motion  and  the 
parallelogram  of  forces.  That  this  agent  is  far  from  un- 
conditioned is  shown  by  its  frequent  failures ;  and  these 
again  are  generally  due  to  some  collision  with  the  element- 
ary laws  of  physics  and  chemistry.  Life,  for  example,  can- 
not prevent  blood-poisoning  or  distortion,  but  is  fatally 
bound  by  its  conditions.  The  physical  and  chemical  laws 
have  such  significance  that,  whatever  view  we  may  take  of 
life  itself,  all  valuable  practical  study  in  physiology  and  pa- 
thology certainly  lies  in  tracing  their  effect  and  in  availing 
ourselves  of  them.  Organization,  then,  cannot  be  deduced 
from  life  alone,  but  only  from  life  in  a  fixed  interaction  with 


336  METAPHYSICS. 

matter;  and  in  this  interaction  the  laws  of  matter  are  as 
prominent  as  the  laws  of  life.  Thus  organization  would  be 
the  necessary  outcome  of  fixed  law,  and  in  this  sense  would 
be  mechanical.  Most  vitalists,  indeed,  would  admit  this. 
They  would  claim  that  the  work  of  life  in  organization  is 
mainly  directive,  that  it  does  not  conflict  with  the  lower 
forces,  but  avails  itself  of  them.  The  only  advantage  this 
conception  would  have  over  the  material  view  would  be  in 
planting  the  "  subtle  tendencies  "  in  a  single  definite  agent, 
and  in  finding  the  chief  determining  conditions  in  the  nature 
of  that  agent.  This  would  remove  the  necessity  of  depart- 
ing so  widely  from  the  common  view  of  matter  as  we  must 
otherwise ;  since  we  could  then  allow,  what  all  knowledge 
seems  to  indicate,  that  matter  in  itself  is  essentially  indiffer- 
ent to  organic  forms,  and  assumes  them  only  as  it  comes  into 
interaction  with  some  agent  which  contains  the  ground  of 
form  within  itself. 

For  the  present  we  leave  this  question,  and  pass  to  the 
other  and  more  important  one  concerning  the  subject  of  the 
apparent  thought  and  sensibility  which  the  animal  world 
manifests.  Strangely  enough  the  discussion  has  generally 
been  confined  to  the  cause  of  organization,  whereas  the 
point  is  quite  subordinate.  Neither  the  mechanical  theory 
nor  the  theory  which  makes  God  the  builder  of  the  organ- 
ism provides  any  subject  for  the  mental  life.  If  the  body 
be  simply  a  function  of  the  physical  elements,  it  is  sensitive 
and  truly  living  only  in  appearance.  In  fact,  it  is  no  more 
alive  than  any  complex  inorganic  mass.  The  difference  is 
phenomenal  only,  not  essential.  Of  course  the  organism 
has  many  qualities  which  other  combinations  have  not;  but, 
in  fact,  since  matter  and  motion  are  all  that  is  concerned  in 
the  organism,  there  is  nothing  but  matter  and  motion  in  it. 
But  feeling  is  something  totally  unlike  motion;  and  no 
analysis  of  motion  will  reveal  feeling  as  one  of  its  constitu- 
ents. There  is  no  way  of  passing  from  one  to  the  other. 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  337 

In  unclear  thought,  the  darkness  and  mystery  which  cover 
molecular  processes  seem  able  to  accomplish  the  transition  ; 
and,  indeed,  who  can  tell  what  might  not  be  possible  in  those 
dark  recesses?  But  we  can  escape  this  folly  by  conceiving 
our  vision  sharpened  until  the  elements  stand  apart  in  our 
intuition  as  they  are  said  to  stand  apart  in  fact.  When  we 
do  this,  we  shall  perceive  no  more  explanation  of  feeling  in 
the  movements  of  the  molecules  than  in  those  of  the  solar 
system.  The  mechanical  theorists  always  delude  themselves 
with  words  at  this  point.  They  point  out  that  in  chemistry 
we  pass  from  the  atom  to  the  molecule,  and  from  the  simple 
molecule  to  the  complex  molecule,  and  from  the  complex 
molecule  to  the  organic  molecule,  and  from  the  simple  or- 
ganic molecule  to  complex  organic  molecules,  and  from  these 
again  to  groups  of  the  same.  But  these  already  exhibit 
signs  of  life  and  organization.  After  a  little  skirmishing 
with  the  formidable  terms  of  organic  chemistry,  reproduc- 
tion and  heredity  are  quietly  brought  in,  and  the  evolution 
of  life  from  the  inorganic  is  complete.  Not  a  few  specula- 
tors fancy  that  the  production  of  organic  chemical  com- 
pounds has  very  great  significance  in  illustrating  the  rise  of 
life.  A  word  will  suffice  to  show  the  verbal  character  of 
this  process.  If  we  begin  with  matter  and  motion,  we  must 
end  with  it  also ;  and  whatever  cannot  be  construed  in  terms 
of  moving  matter  must  be  rejected  as  illusory.  There  is  no 
difficulty  in  passing  from  the  atom  to  the  molecule,  or  in  pass- 
ing from  simple  molecules  to  complex  molecules  and  groups 
of  molecules ;  but  there  the  advance  ceases.  All  that  re- 
mains is  to  increase  the  complexity  of  the  molecules  and 
the  molecular  groups ;  for  this  is  the  only  direction  which 
the  redistribution  of  matter  can  take.  When,  then,  the  ma- 
terialist next  presents  us  with  the  organic  molecule,  we  are 
a  little  puzzled  to  know  what  he  means  by  the  new  adjec- 
tive. It  may  mean  simply  a  molecule  which  is  commonly 
found  only  in  connection  with  organisms ;  but  in  that  case 
it  is  nothing  to  the  purpose.  But  if  it  mean  something 
22 


338  METAPHYSICS. 

more  than  complex,  we  need  to  have  the  distinction  between 
an  organic  molecule  and  a  complex  molecule  more  clearly 
stated.  It  may  be  said  that  an  organic  molecule  is  essen- 
tially only  a  highly  complex  molecule,  but  it  manifests  dif- 
ferent phenomena.  We  reply  that  we  are  after  the  essen- 
tial and  not  the  phenomenal.  There  is  no  dispute  as  to  the 
phenomena  of  organisms,  but  as  to  their  essential  nature. 
And  if  their  phenomena  are  all  explained  by  the  interaction 
of  the  elements,  then  organisms  are  essentially  atomic  com- 
plexes and  nothing  more. 

The  truth  is,  as  Mr.  Malcolm  Guthrie  has  admirably  shown 
in  a  criticism  of  Mr.  Spencer's  formula,*  that  this  use  of 
"  organic,"  "  organization,"  etc.,  is  simply  to  enable  us  to 
bring  in  laws  which  are  not  deduced  from  the  starting-point, 
but  are  borrowed  from  the  organic  realm,  and  are  utterly 
incommensurate  with  any  known  inorganic  laws.  But  if 
we  should  confine  ourselves  entirely  to  complex  molecules, 
we  should  clearly  see  the  impossibility  of  advancing  beyond 
them.  Such  groups  would  appear  as  products  of  physical 
and  chemical  attractions  and  repulsions,  and  even  the  most 
determined  evolutionist  would  hardly  venture  to  speak  of 
them  as  alive  or  as  subject  to  experience  and  heredity.  But 
if,  instead  of  calling  these  groups  complex  molecules  and 
groups  of  molecules,  which  by  the  theory  is  all  they  can  be, 
we  call  them  organic,  then  by  the  sheer  force  of  the  terms 
we  shall  find  it  easy  to  pass  on  to  speak  of  organization  and 
heredity ;  and  the  way  will  be  open  before  us.  We  can  then 
appeal  to  life  and  biological  laws  without  any  reference 
whatever  to  the  possibility  of  interpreting  them  in  terms  of 
matter  and  motion.  But  if  thought  be  clear,  this  procedure 
must  be  seen  as  delusive.  There  is  nothing  in  the  most 
complex  organism  but  complex  molecules;  and  the  only  dif- 
ference between  the  elements  as  thus  grouped  and  as  other- 
wise grouped  is  purely  phenomenal.  A  living  thing  is  es- 

*  "On  Mr.  Spencer's  Formula  of  Evolution." 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  339 

sentially  an  inorganic  complex  which  seems  to  be  alive.  In 
itself  one  thing  is  as  dead  or  as  living  as  another.  The  dis- 
tinction is  only  in  appearance,  and  even  this  appearance  is 
impossible  as  long  as  there  is  no  mind  to  which  it  appears. 
A  mind  which  could  grasp  things  as  they  are  would  see  in 
an  organism  only  a  complex  system  of  moving  atoms. 
Along  with  this  admission  goes  the  absurdity  of  the  notion 
of  heredity.  The  laws  of  the  elements  are  hardly  to  be 
viewed  as  acquired  or  inherited ;  and  since  these  laws  de- 
termine all  compounds,  the  organism  also  must  be  fixed. 
Life,  then,  is  phenomenal ;  and  an  animal  is  but  an  automa- 
ton which  only  seems  to  think  and  feel. 

"We  get  no  relief  from  this  conclusion,  if  we  endow  the 
atoms  with  the  most  mystic  qualities,  or  even  allow  them  to 
be  alive.  These  mystic  properties  remain  subjective  to  each 
atom,  and  manifest  themselves  externally  only  in  changes  of 
place  and  condition.  The  inner  life,  therefore,  would  not 
appear  as  any  factor  of  observation,  but  would  only  be  one 
of  the  inner  forces  which  condition  redistribution.  Such  a 
view  might  help  in  explaining  organization,  but  not  in  ac- 
counting for  the  life  of  the  organism.  For  on  this  view 
the  organism  still  remains  an  aggregate  without  any  subject- 
ive unity,  or  subjectivity  of  any  sort.  Hence,  the  feeling 
and  thought  which  the  animal  seems  to  manifest  are  again 
phenomenal.  An  appearance  of  feeling  and  thought  is  pos- 
sible in  an  aggregate  or  automaton ;  but  their  reality  is 
possible  only  to  some  unitary  subject  which  thinks  and 
feels.  To  say  that  the  organism  thinks  and  feels  is  thought- 
less ;  for  the  organism  is  just  such  a  reality  as  the  public  in 
social  science.  When  we  speak  of  the  public  thought  and 
feeling,  we  know  very  well  that  only  individual  persons 
think  and  feel.  The  public,  as  such,  neither  thinks  nor 
feels,  but  only  the  persons  who  compose  it.  We  must,  then, 
reduce  the  animals  to  automata  which  mimic  thought  and 
feeling,  or  we  must  allow  a  real  substantive  subject  of  their 
mental  life. 


340  METAPHYSICS. 

~We  are  no  better  off  with  the  view  which  regards  God  as 
the  builder  of  the  organism.  For  still  the  organism  appears 
either  as  a  pure  phenomenon,  or  as  a  complex  of  discrete  ac- 
tivities, and  as  such  it  is  without  any  mental  subject.  Hence, 
any  thought  and  feeling  which  the  animal  may  show  are 
phenomena  only,  and  do  not  indicate  any  true  thought  or 
feeling  which  the  animal  has.  The  view  which  regards  life 
as  a  kind  of  universal  agent,  manifesting  itself  in  different 
forms,  is  subject  to  the  same  difficulties.  It  provides  no 
subject  for  the  individual  life  and  feeling  of  the  individual 
animal. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  most  important  question  concern- 
ing life  is  not  that  of  organization,  but  that  of  the  subject 
of  the  thought  and  feeling  which  animals  manifest.  "Where 
it  is  merely  a  question  of  organization,  as  in  the  vegetable 
world,  there  are  several  possible  views,  each;of  which  would 
be  adequate ;  but  when  mental  manifestations  appear,  as  in 
all  the  higher  orders  of  animajs,  then  we  must  make  a  choice. 
Either  we  must  view  these  manifestations  as  purely  phenom- 
enal, and  make  the  animals  senseless  automata  which  only 
mimic  thought  and  feeling,  or  we  must  declare  that  with 
each  new  animal  a  new  factor  is  introduced  into  the  system 
as  the  thinking  and  feeling  subject  of  the  animal's  experi- 
ence. There  have  been  attempts  at  the  former  view.  The 
Cartesians  held  it  for  a  time ;  and  it  has  been  lately  revived 
by  various  speculators.  The  recent  revival,  however,  has 
been  half-hearted,  in  that  while  the  animals  are  called  au- 
tomata, they  are  also  called  conscious  automata.  But  the 
adjective  is  totally  out  of  place.  There  is  no  subject  for 
the  consciousness;  and  we  must  allow  on  this  theory  that 
the  consciousness  is  only  in  seeming. 

The  decision  between  these  views  can  be  reached  only  by 
observing  the  action  of  animals.  The  doctrine  of  animal 
automatism  we  believe  to  be  one  of  the  idols  of  the  specula- 
tive den,  and  one  which  no  observer  of  animals  will  worship 
who  is  not  mentally  debauched  by  materialistic  speculation. 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  341 

No  other  will  long  consent  to  believe  that  a  horse  or  a  dog, 
when  manifesting  fear  or  joy  or  shame  or  anger,  really  feels 
nothing,  but  is  only  an  artful  automaton.  It  would  be 
such  a  long  step  towards  utter  scepticism  that  there  would 
be  no  longer  any  reason  for  trusting  appearances  at  all,  and 
thus  science  would  perish.  Again,  our  faith  in  our  fellows' 
thought  and  feeling  would  be  left  utterly  groundless ;  for 
there  is  little  more  reason  for  believing  that  a  man  feels  than 
for  believing  that  the  brutes  feel.  Hence,  the  doctrine  of 
automatism  in  brutes  has  always  tended  to  the  same  doctrine 
for  man.  But,  if  we  regard  this  view  as  untenable  for  both 
man  and  brute,  we  are  shut  up  to  the  view  that  God,  who  is 
the  omnipresent  factor  in  all  on-going,  posits  with  the  grow- 
ing organism  a  new  being,  which  develops  along  with  it  as 
the  subject  of  the  apparent  thought  and  sensibility.  Any 
other  view  reduces  the  animals  to  mechanisms  which  only 
mimic  thought  and  feeling. 

We  hold,  then,  that  the  creative  action  of  God  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  production  of  the  physical  elements,  or  of  that 
series  of  activities  which  constitute  the  elements,  but  that  it 
includes  also  the  production  of  animal  and  human  minds  ac- 
cording to  that  order  which  he  has  adopted  as  the  norm  of 
his  action.  Indeed,  this  conclusion  is  not  dependent  on  any 
particular  view  of  the  infinite  whatever,  but  results  necessa- 
rily from  the  admission  that  thought  and  feeling  really  exist 
in  man  or  animal.  Whether  the  infinite  be  free  and  intelli- 
gent, or  blind  and  necessitated,  it  is  alike  necessary  to  view 
all  finite  manifestation  and  activity  as  determined  by  it. 
The  order  of  this  manifestation  cannot  be  determined  in  ad- 
vance. It  is  sheer  assumption,  on  any  theory,  to  say  even 
that  the  physical  elements  were  all  produced  from  or  by  the 
infinite  at  once,  or  that  they  have  always  existed.  If  the 
infinite  be  blind,  its  emanating  activities  may  be  successive 
as  well  as  coexistent,  and  they  may  change  completely  in 
character  from  time  to  time.  Indeed,  on  the  hypothesis  of 
absolute  evolution,  which  embraces  all  the  forms  of  being,  it 


342  METAPHYSICS. 

is  infinitely  improbable  that  the  elements  were  all  evolved 
at  once.  On  the  theistic  view  of  the  infinite,  we  can  only 
say  that  the  order  of  appearance  and  disappearance  of  the 
elements  or  other  factors  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  plan  of 
God.  If  that  plan  calls  for  appearance  or  disappearance, 
the  fact  will  follow.  On  the  non-theistic  view,  we  are  still 
forced  to  find  the  ground  of  all  finite  being  and  movement 
in  the  nature  of  the  infinite.  AVhat  is  thus  a  necessary  ad- 
mission in  every  theory,  even  in  the  case  of  the  physical  el- 
ements, need  not  cause  any  surprise  when  insisted  on  for  the 
mental  subjects  which  appear  in  the  course  of  the  system. 
The  view  will  appear  incredible  only  to  those  materialists 
who  view  the  elements  as  a  series  of  self-existent  and  inde- 
pendent things;  but  their  views  are  not  entitled  to  any 
further  consideration. 

We  return  now  to  the  question  of  organization  and  the 
mechanical  theory  of  life.  It  may  be  held,  (1)  that  the  soul 
itself,  in  its  unconscious  activity,  is  the  builder  of  the  body  ; 
(2)  that  the  body  is  built  by  a  vital  agent,  distinct  from  both 
matter  and  spirit ;  and,  (3),  that  the  body  results  from  the 
interaction  of  the  elements.  The  first  view  would  demand 
the  assumption  of  a  plant-soul,  to  explain  vegetable  organi- 
zation. The  second  view  is  by  no  means  a  clear  one ;  and 
the  third  leads  to  the  most  mystical  conceptions  of  matter. 
Much  might  be  said  of  the  difficulties  and  advantages  of 
each  of  these  views,  but,  from  a  speculative  standpoint,  the 
simplest  view  is  not  identical  with  any  one  of  them.  To 
develop  this  view,  we  must  return  to  our  own  metaphysical 
standpoint.  Thus  far  we  have  debated  the  question  on  the 
current  theories  of  matter,  and  have  made  our  criticisms  from 
'  that  standpoint.  But,  for  us,  the  physical  elements  are  sim- 
ply forms  of  the  activity  of  the  infinite,  and  their  forces  are 
'  simply  expressions  of  their  mutual  relations  in  the  world- 
plan.  The  elements,  therefore,  appear  to  us  as  no  fixed 
and  changeless  beings,  with  properties  which  they  possess 
absolutely  and  in  their  own  right,  but  as  flowing  formulas 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  343 

of  the  divine  activity.     Hence  they  represent  the  flowing- 
forth  of  the  divine  purpose  into  realization,  and  they  have 
at  any  instant  just  those  forces  which  that  purpose  demands. 
We  may  say,  then,  that  the  organism  is  the  resultant  of  the 
physical  activities,  and  that  these  physical  activities  are,  in 
turn,  the  resultant  of  the  organism.     This  paradoxical  state- 
ment means  this :  If  we  could  observe  the  development  of 
any  germ,  so  as  to  perceive  even  the  elements  themselves, 
we  should  probably  see,  so  far  as  the  body  is  concerned,  just 
what  the  materialist  supposes.     "We  should  not  see  any  dem- 
iurge drawing  the  elements  back  and  forth,  but  all  motions 
would  appear  to  spring  from  the  inner  nature  of  the  atoms*> 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  atoms  themselves  are  no  rigid,  j 
self-identical  points,  but  are  acts  of  the  infinite,  and,  as  such,  j 
have  all  their  peculiar  qualities  or  forces  from  the  end  tow- 
ards which  the  work  proceeds.     God  does  not  first  make  a  i 
lot  of  raw  material,  with  rigid  laws,  and  then  combine  it  as  I 
best  he  can,  but  matter  and  all  its  laws  are  but  his  purpose  j 
incessantly  realizing  itself.     The  conception  of  matter  as  I 
something  given  and  fixed  we  repudiate  entirely.     It  is  a  \ 
notion  which  rests  upon  the  supposition  that  God's  relation    \ 
to  the  system  is  the  same  as  ours.     We  hold,  then,  to  a  phe-    1 
nomenal  materialism  and  an  absolute  spiritualism.     Matter 
is  simply  a  form  of  manifestation  of  which  the  reality  is  the^J 
immanent  God.     Yet,  throughout  this  manifestation  there 
are  certain  general  modes  of  procedure  which  can  be  traced 
in  all  material  aggregates,  whether  living  or  dead,  and  which 
thereby  found  the  mechanical  theory.     It  is  plain  that,  with 
this  view,  we  feel  no  need  of  any  special  vital  agent  to  con- 
struct the  organism.     A  new  subject  is  needed  only  to  ac- 
count for  the  mental  life  of  the  being. 

From  this  standpoint  we  can  form  some  general  judgment 
of  the  relative  validity  of  the  mechanical  and  the  organic 
theory  of  the  system.  In  the  beginning  of  the  chapter  we 
pointed  out  that  the  organic  theory  is  untenable,  except  as 


344  METAPHYSICS. 

a  doctrine  of  final  cause  and  of  unity  in  the  system.  Both 
theories  are  alike  necessary  to  the  complete  interpretation 
of  the  system.  Owing  to  its  history,  the  mechanical  theory 
has  generally  had  a  tendency  to  run  off  into  corpuscular  at- 
omism, and  thus  to  explain  the  system  by  a  set  of  elements 
which  are  essentially  unrelated  to  any  system.  The  ele- 
ments as  thus  conceived  would  have  no  affinity  for  any  one 
combination  rather  than  for  any  other,  and  thus  the  actual 
combinations  would  be  mere  coincidences  or  accidents.  For 
example,  the  existence  and  constancy  of  the  chemical  classes 
would  not  be  founded  in  the  nature  of  the  elements,  but  in 
mere  coincidence.  Their  nature  would  be  as  compatible 
with  their  non-existence  or  with  their  existence  in  any  other 
form.  One  speculator,  in  his  zeal  for  this  conclusion,  has 
recently  suggested  that  the  chemical  classes  are  only  cases 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  though  why  one  combination 
should  be  fitter  than  another,  if  there  be  no  original  tenden- 
cy to  it,  he  neglected  to  say.  In  like  manner,  on  the  cor- 
puscular theory,  all  orderly  combination  and  sequence  would 
have  no  foundation  in  being,  but  would  be  only  a  coinci- 
dence of  independent  things.  But  this  is  the  essential  idea 
of  chance.  Chance  does  not  mean  the  lack  of  causation,  but 
the  coincidence  of  mutually  independent  series  of  events. 
Thus  the  undesigned  meeting  of  two  persons  is  called  a 
chance-meeting,  because  the  movements  of  neither  were  un- 
dertaken with  reference  to  those  of  the  other,  nor  implied 
those  of  the  other.  In  this  case  two  series  of  movements 
have  a  point  of  junction,  and,  because  mutually  indepen- 
dent, the  junction  is  called  an  accident  or  coincidence.  In 
like  manner,  the  extreme  mechanical  view  would  make  all 
law,  order,  and  harmonious  combination  mere  coincidences 
of  elements  which  have  no  essential  relation  to  their  effects. 
This  is  the  view  which  Prof.  Tyndall  has  denounced  as  ab- 
surd, monstrous,  and  fit  only  for  the  intellectual  gibbet. 

But  the  human  mind  is  such  that  it  cannot  regard  orderly 
and  constant  coincidence  as  mere  coincidence.     If  a  brick 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  345 

should  fall  from  a  housetop  upon  a  passer-by,  it  would  be 
set  down  to  chance ;  but  if  it  were  a  regular  thing,  the  co- 
incidence itself  would  become  a  problem  for  investigation. 
The  result  of  such  considerations  has  been  a  very  general 
insight  into  the  fact  that  a  mechanism  which  is  to  explain 
the  harmonies  of  the  system  must  be  one  in  which  those 
harmonies  are  implicit  as  its  inner  law.  Accordingly,  there 
has  been  a  general  call  for  new  definitions  of  matter  among 
those  who  seek  to  extend  its  possibilities.  Some  have  sug- 
gested that  life  and  mind  be  included  in  its  definition  ;  and 
one,  who,  in  a  moment  of  vision,  discerned  in  matter  the 
promise  and  potency  of  all  manifestation,  soon  reduced  his 
prophecy  to  a  tautology  by  defining  matter  as  the  mysteri- 
ous cause  of  phenomena.  Still  others,  who  deny  any  vital 
principle,  nevertheless  instruct  us  that  the  development  of 
the  organism  is  ruled  by  the  idea  of  the  whole,  though 
how  an  idea  can  rule  or  direct  physical  forces,  unless  it  be 
inherent  in  them  as  their  inner  law,  is  not  made  clear. 
Thus  the  process  has  gone  on  of  stuffing  wisdom  and  intel- 
ligence into  the  alleged  mechanism,  until  it  has  become 
almost  identical  with  mind,  and  some  have  even  announced 
an  obligation  to  worship  and  adore  it.  But  the  mechanical 
explanation  of  teleological  problems  is  a  pure  tautology ;  for 
it  has  to  frame  its  mechanism  to  fit  the  effects,  and  then  the 
deduction  of  the  effects  is  merely  drawing  out  what  has 
been  put  in.  There  is  neither  great  difficulty  nor  great  gain 
in  viewing  the  mechanism  as  adequate  when  it  is  first  made 
so  by  hypothesis.  It  is  only  as  a  principle  of  method,  and 
as  dealing  with  the  form  of  interaction  in  the  system,  that 
the  theory  has  any  value.  As  soon  as  it  claims  to  give  a 
theory  of  causation,  or  to  explain  the  teleological  problems 
of  the  system,  it  becomes  insufferably  tedious  and  self-stul- 
tifying. 

The  organic  conception,  on  the  other  hand,  has  its  peculiar 
value.  It  is  justified,  first  of  all,  in  denying  the  indepen- 
dence of  mechanism.  We  have  seen  that  a  complex  of  in- 


346  METAPHYSICS. 

teracting  agents  is  impossible,  except  as  dependent  upon  a 
basal  unity  whose  purpose  or  nature  is  the  ground  of  the 
nature  and  laws  of  the  system:  The  organic  theory  is  fur- 
ther justified  in  denying  that  the  system  can  be  explained 
by  agents  or  processes  which  are  not  essentially  related  to 
it.  The  idea  of  the  system  must  be  expressed  in  the  nature 
of  these  agents  before  it  can  be  realized  by  them.  In  this 
ideal  sense,  the  whole  must  precede  its  parts,  and  the  parts 
are  implications  of  the  whole.  But  when  this  ideal  relation 
is  mistaken  for  a  causal  relation,  or  when  "Nature"  is  hy- 
postasized  into  a  mysterious  substantive  unity,  then  the  the- 
ory becomes  absurd.  The  declaration  that  the  whole  pre- 
cedes its  parts  can  only  mean  that  the  processes  of  the  sys- 
tem must  take  place  according  to  the  idea  of  the  system. 
But  this  necessity  does  not  lie  in  the  idea,  or  in  some  in- 
comprehensible spontaneity  of  instinct,  but  in  the  fact  that 
the  Creator  determines  them  .according  to  that  idea.  Thus 
it  once  more  appears  that  the  organic  theory,  so  far  as  ten- 
able, coincides  with  teleology,  and  that  it  demands  the  me- 
chanical theory  as  its  necessary  complement.  To  know  what 
a  thing  is  for  does  not  tell  us  how  it  is  brought  about,  and 
to  know  how  a  thing  is  brought  about  does  not  tell  us  what 
it  is  for.  The  affirmation  of  ends  must  always  be  supple- 
mented by  the  study  of  means ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
study  of  means  must  not  displace  the  belief  in  ends.  This 
error  is  possible  only  to  such  minds  as  fancy  that  to  see  how 
a  thing  is  done  proves  that  there  is  no  purpose  in  the  doing. 
This  fancy,  in  turn,  rests  upon  the  further  fancy  that  the 
uniform  methods  of  the  cosmos  are  ontological  necessities 
which  realize  themselves.  But,  for  us,  this  fancy  is  a  thing 
of  the  past.  "We  hold  that  there  are  general  modes  of  pro- 
cedure in  the  system,  and  that  the  interaction  of  things  takes 
place  according  to  fixed  laws ;  and  we  likewise  hold  that  the 
interaction  which  underlies  and  founds  the  mechanical  sys- 
tem is  itself  the  expression  of  purpose,  and  is  realized  only 
through  the  free  and  continuous  activity  of  the  infinite. 


THE  COSMOS  AS  MECHANISM.  34.7 

Here  our  cosmical  inquiry  ends.  In  treating  of  the  nature 
of  the  infinite,  we  found  that  an  apriori  cosmology  is  im- 
possible. There  is  no  passage  from  the  notion  of  being  to 
its  cosmic  manifestation.  The  knowledge  of  the  latter  can 
be  learned  only  from  experience.  Whether  viewed  as  a 
necessary  outcome  of  the  nature  of  the  infinite  substance, 
or  as  expressing  the  plan  and  purpose  of  the  Creator,  it  is 
alike  impenetrable  to  deductive  thought.  From  our  own 
theistic  standpoint,  we  are  forced  to  find  the  reason  why 
the  system  is  as  it  is  in  the  purposes  of  the  infinite.  This 
fact,  in  itself,  would  not  be  incompatible  with  an  insight 
into  these  purposes,  and  into  the  means  of  their  realiza- 
tion ;  but  both  the  purposes  and  the  methods  of  accomplish- 
ment are  largely  hidden  from  our  knowledge.  In  most 
cases,  where  design  is  manifest,  the  end  seems  to  have  little 
worth;  and  where  a  worthy  end  is  affirmed,  the  system 
seems  quite  indifferent,  if  not  inimical,  to  its  realization. 
The  only  end  which  can  be  allowed  to  have  absolute  value 
is  an  ethical  one ;  but  it  is  hard  to  detect  any  relation  to 
such  an  end  in  the  mass  of  cosmic  details.  It  is  still  harder 
to  find  any  reason  why  this  end  might  not  have  been  se- 
cured in  a  more  direct  and  efficient  way.  Viewed  as  a 
whole,  the  great  cosmic  drift  does  not  seem  to  set  very  de- 
cidedly in  any  direction,  and  the  mass  of  results  seem  more 
like  products  than  purposes.  The  great  forms  of  elemen- 
tary activity  are  maintained,  and  in  their  interaction  they 
give  rise  to  various  products  to  which  it  is  difficult  to  ascribe 
any  further  significance.  The  belief  in  purpose  in  the  sys- 
tem has  its  special  embarrassments  as  well  as  its  advantages. 
We  cannot  do  without  it,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  do  with  it. 
In  particular,  it  precipitates  upon  us  the  great  mass  of  fail- 
ure, insignificance,  and  mischief  which  forms  so  large  a  part 
of  visible  nature,  and  demands  an  interpretation.  And  here 
all  human  wisdom  is  at  an  end.  The  problem  of  evil  to 
which  these  questions  belong  admits  of  no  speculative  solu- 
tion at  present.  We  cannot  give  up  our  affirmation  of  pur- 


348  METAPHYSICS. 

pose,  but  we  must  admit  that  the  purposes  of  the  system  are 
mostly  inscrutable.  Yet,  still,  we  hold  that  neither  the  ex- 
istence nor  the  circumstances  of  the  cosmos  are  in  any  re- 
spect ontological  necessities,  but,  both  in  extent  and  dura- 
tion and  character,  it  is  what  the  plan  of  the  Creator  calls 
for.  Whether  uniform  or  variable,  stationary  or  progres- 
sive, depends  on  something  deeper  than  itself.  It  is  possi- 
ble that  the  elementary  forms  of  action  are  fixed ;  and  it  is 
equally  possible  that  these  also  undergo  variation.  The  nec- 
essary uniformity  of  natural  law  is  a  postulate  for  which  we 
have  not  the  slightest  rational  warrant.  Experience  is  the 
only  source  from  which  we  learn  what  the  laws  of  nature 
are,  and  from  which  we  learn  that  these  laws  are  even  rela- 
tively fixed. 


Part  III. 

PSYCHOLOGY 


PART  III— PSYCHOLOGY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  SOUL. 

THUS  far  we  have  dealt  either  with  being  in  general  or 
with  so-called  material  existence.  We  have  now  to  consider 
spiritual  being.  There  are  certain  leading  principles  and 
processes  in  this  realm  which  it  is  the  province  of  meta- 
physics to  investigate.  Until  this  is  done,  empirical  psy- 
chology is  a  mere  chaos  of  alleged  facts,  partly  true  and  part- 
ly false.  And  the  facts  themselves,  like  the  facts  of  physical 
nature,  depend  for  their  interpretation  on  some  metaphys- 
ical conception.  Accordingly,  it  is  found  that  the  various 
schools  of  psychology,  like  the  various  schools  of  cosmic 
speculation,  agree  as  to  the  phenomena,  but  differ  in  their 
metaphysics.  Hence,  also,  harmony  and  advance  are  to  be 
secured,  less  by  a  thoughtless  heaping  up  of  observations 
than  by  a  study  of  the  metaphysics  of  psychology.  Induc- 
tion which  is  guided  by  no  principle  leads  to  nothing,  wheth- 
er in  psychology  or  elsewhere. 

The  central  point  of  psychology  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
soul.  It  is,  indeed,  the  central  point  of  all  philosophy  and 
science.  For  knowledge  in  general  assumes  the  trustworthi- 
ness of  the  knowing  power.  Whatever  throws  discredit  on 
this  discredits  knowledge  itself.  If  knowledge  is  to  be  ad- 
mitted, we  are  under  obligation  to  reach  some  theory  of 


352  METAPHYSICS. 

mind  which  shall  be  consistent  with  such  admission.  But 
not  every  theory  of  the  soul  is  consistent  with  trust  in  knowl- 
edge. Hence  the  importance  of  the  question. 

The  chief  debate  about  the  soul  concerns  its  reality. 
This  is  commonly  called  the  question  of  materialism  or 
spiritualism  ;  but  these  terms  are  hardly  exact  without  some 
further  determination.  The  true  question  is  whether  the 
soul  be  substantial  or  non-substantial,  a  true  thing  or  a  func- 
tion of  material  activities.  Materialism  itself  is  ambiguous. 
It  may  imply  the  crude  theory  of  matter  held  by  uncritical 
common-sense,  and  it  may  imply  merely  the  unreality  of 
mind.  This  ambiguity  of  the  term  has  been  used  by  many 
speculators  to  escape  the  charge  of  materialism.  They  mean 
by  their  denial  that  they  do  not  hold  the  crude  lump-notion 
of  matter,  but  regard  it  as  something  mystic  and  wonderful. 
At  the  same  time,  they  teach  in  the  most  decided  manner 
that  mind  is  the  unsubstantial  product  of  organization.  But 
as  this  is  what  common-sense  understands  by  materialism, 
we  shall  use  the  word  as  implying  no  specific  theory  of  mat- 
ter, but  only  as  implying  the  non-substantiality  of  mind. 
In  this  sense,  materialism  is  compatible  with  any  and  every 
theory  of  matter,  and  even  with  idealism  or  nihilism.  For 
while  one  holds  matter  to  be  but  a  phantom,  one  may  also 
hold  mind  to  be  a  phantom,  and  one  may  further  hold  that 
the  phantom  mind  never  appears  except  as  an  attendant  of 
the  phantom  matter.  Historically,  as  in  the  case  of  left- 
wing  Hegelianism,  idealism  has  often  transformed  itself  into 
materialism ;  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  chief  materialists 
at  present  hold  an  essentially  nihilistic  philosophy,  though 
many  are  Spinozists.  These  facts  show  how  close  an  alliance 
there  may  be  between  these  apparent  opposites.  There  is 
an  idealistic  materialism  ;  and  there  is  also  a  materialistic 
idealism.  Materialism,  as  understood  by  common-sense,  is 
to  be  discovered  not  in  its  doctrine  of  matter,  but  in  its  doc- 
trine of  mind.  Every  system  which  reduces  mind  to  a  sum 
of  mental  states,  and  then  views  these  states  as  the  result 


THE  SOUL.  353 

of  organization,  is  materialistic,  no  matter  what  it  may  call 
itself,  whether  nihilism,  idealism,  pantheism,  or  agnosticism. 

If  we  should  appeal  to  the  results  reached  in  the  preced- 
ing sections,  we  might  regard  the  debate  as  already  decided 
against  materialism.  "We  have  there  found  that  matter  can 
lay  no  claim  to  a  properly  substantive  existence,  and  that 
spirit  only  fills  out  the  notion  of  being.  But  inasmuch  as 
we  have  returned  again  and  again  to  the  standpoint  of  spon- 
taneous and  unreflective  thought,  we  do  so  once  more,  and 
debate  the  question  on  the  assumed  reality  of  the  physical 
elements. 

The  positive  argument  for  materialism  is  undecisive. 
It  consists  entirely  in  appealing  to  the  well-known  fact  that 
the  condition  and  development  of  the  body  are  important 
factors  of  the  mental  outcome.  But  this  fact  would  result 
on  any  theory.  If,  as  every  one  admits,  the  mind  is  now 
conditioned  by  the  body,  it  is  plain  that  the  health  and  per- 
fection of  the  body  must  have  a  profound  significance 
for  the  mental  life.  But  there  is  no  need  to  dwell  upon 
truths  so  nearly  self-evident.  It  will  always  be  a  highly 
important  duty  of  the  physician  to  study  the  mental  signifi- 
cance of  pathological  physical  states ;  but  only  extreme  su- 
perficiality can  expect  thereby  to  solve  the  problem  of  the 
soul. 

The  first  great  difficulty  which  materialism  meets  is  the 
complete  unlikeness  of  physical  and  mental  facts.  Thoughts 
and  feelings  have  nothing  in  common  with  matter  and 
motion  ;  and  no  amount  of  reflection  will  serve  to  identify 
them,  or  to  deduce  one  from  the  other  as  its  necessary  im- 
plication. But  physical  science  deals  only  with  matter  and 
motion  and  moving  forces,  and  all  its  explanations  are  in 
terms  of  these  factors.  The  molecule  and  the  mass  are  only 
specific  groupings  of  material  elements  ;  and  the  forces  with 
which  physics  deals  are  known  only  as  related  to  motion. 
Hence  a  physical  explanation  of  thought  and  feeling  must 
consist  in  a  representation  of  them  in  terms  of  material 
23 


354:  METAPHYSICS. 

movements  and  groupings.  Just  as  a  given  number  of  ele- 
ments grouped  in  a  certain  way  is  a  chemical  molecule,  so, 
if  thought  is  to  be  physically  explained,  we  must  be  able  to 
say  that  a  certain  number  of  elements  grouped  or  moving  in 
a  certain  way  is  a  thought. 

Most  materialists  recognize  the  absurdity  of  this  view, 
and  propose  to  escape  it  by  a  new  definition  of  matter. 
Matter  conceived  as  the  movable  explains  only  motion  and 
aggregation ;  but  is  it  not  possible  that  we  have  held  iof 
low  a  view  of  matter?  Indeed,  how  can  we  tell  wl  .it 
matter  is,  except  by  observing  what  it  does  ?  In  its  inorganic 
state  it  does,  indeed,  show  no  signs  of  life  and  mind  ;  but  it 
has  other  properties  also  which  appear  only  under  certain 
conditions.  Its  chemical  affinities  are  not  always  manifest ; 
and  its  building  energies,  as  in  crystallization,  do  not  always 
appear.  Apart  from  experience,  who  would  have  dreamed 
that  a  slender  wire  could  take  up  human  speech  and  deliver 
it  miles  away,  or  that  water  contains  such  mystic  building 
powers  as  it  shows  on  the  frosted  pane  ?  Again,  all  matter 
has  relation  to  magnetism  and  electricity ;  and  yet  these 
qualities  but  seldom  reveal  themselves.  Why  may  we  not 
say  that  mental  properties  also  are  hidden  in  the  mysterious 
nature  of  matter,  and  manifest  themselves  upon  occasion  ? 
They  would  not,  indeed,  be  deduced  from  the  other  proper- 
ties of  matter  ;  but  they  would,  nevertheless,  belong  to  the 
same  subject  as  the  physical  qualities. 

This  conception  underlies  all  prevailing  forms  of  materi- 
alism. It  views  materiality  and  mentality  as  the  opposite 
sides  of  the  same  substance.  It  even  regards  itself  as  the 
higher  unity  which  transcends  and  reconciles  both  material- 
ism and  spiritualism.  Monism  is  the  name  which  it  espe- 
cially affects  at  present.  In  particular,  it  assumes  to  be  supe- 
rior to  vulgar  materialism.  The  notion  that  matter  as  com- 
monly conceived  can  explain  life  and  mind  it  declares 
"  absurd,  monstrous,  and  fit  only  for  the  intellectual  gibbet." 
All  definitions  of  matter  which  exclude  life  and  mind,  it 


THE  SOUL.  355 

declares  inadequate,  if  not  untrue.  Matter  as  the  movable 
will  not  suffice  ;  but  matter  as  the  mystic  is  all-sufficient. 

The  illustrations  given  serve  rather  to  explain  the  doctrine 
than  to  recommend  it.  In  particular,  they  fail  to  remove 
the  difficulty  arising  from  the  unlikeness  of  physical  and 
mental  states.  The  various  mystic  forces  referred  to  all 
agree  in  being  moving  forces ;  and  their  outcome  is  always 
found  in  some  grouping  or  movement  of  the  material  ele- 
ments. Their  effects  can  be  represented  in  terms  of  matter 
and  motion  ;  while  the  other  mystic  quality  which  produces 
thought  cannot  be  represented  in  such  terms.  "With  this 
admission,  the  theory  passes  from  the  realm  of  science  into 
that  of  speculation.  The  impossibility  of  construing  thought 
in  terms  of  matter  and  motion  is  admitted,  and  recourse  is 
had  to  a  kind  of  materialistic  mysticism. 

If  this  conception  were  allowed,  it  would  remove  to  some 
extent  the  difficulty  contained  in  the  incommensurability  of 
physical  and  mental  facts.  Neither  would,  indeed,  be  de- 
duced from  the  other;  but  a  certain  unity  of  view  would  be 
secured  in  our  world-theory.  The  antithesis  of  matter  and 
mind  would  be  made  non-essential,  both  being  but  opposite 
manifestations  of  the  same  subject.  The  view,  however,  is 
not  clear  in  its  meaning,  and  still  less  in  its  possibility.  In 
any  case  its  value  is  extremely  slight.  It  leaves  mind  and 
matter  as  unmediated  antitheses  side  by  side,  and  without 
any  assignable  communication.  The  word  monism  also  is 
misleading.  One  would  suppose  it  to  mean  that  there  is  but 
one  reality,  of  which  mentality  and  materiality  are  but  the 
opposite  forces.  Etymologically,  of  course,  it  could  have  no 
other  significance.  However,  most  of  those  who  call  them- 
selves monists  hold  some  form  of  .the  atomic  theory,  and 
with  them  monism  must  mean  all-alikeness.  To  call  atom- 
ism, which  is  the  extreme  of  pluralism,  monism,  is  extremely 
loose  and  leads  to  looseness.  It  leads  many  to  imagine  that 
some  great  simplification  has  been  reached,  whereas  the 
simplicity  is  entirely  in  name.  The  doctrine  being  unclear- 


356  METAPHYSICS. 

ly  conceived,  it  is  of  course  ambiguously  held.  Sometimes 
it  means  that  there  is  but  one  kind  of  existence,  although 
there  are  numberless  individuals ;  and  sometimes  it  means 
that  there  is  but  one  reality,  and  that  all  phenomena,  how- 
ever antithetical,  are  but  manifestations  of  this  one.  Fre- 
quently the  same  speculators  hold  both  views  without  any 
suspicion  of  their  difference,  and  change  unconsciously  from 
one  to  the  other,  as  the  needs  of  their  argument  may  require. 
We  consider  the  theory  in  both  forms. 

But  before  going  further,  we  must  consider  a  difficulty 
which  arises  from  this  new  conception  of  matter.  The  ma- 
terialist especially  affects  the  title  of  scientist,  and  this  makes 
it  necessary  that  he  pay  some  attention  to  the  recognized 
doctrines  of  physics.  The  physicist  regards  his  science  as 
dealing  only  with  the  redistribution  of  matter  and  motion ; 
and  this  redistribution  he  views  as  subject  only  to  the  laws 
of  force  and  motion.  If,  then,  thought  is  to  result  from 
physical  activities,  it  must  in  some  way  result  from  the 
movements  of  the  elements.  This  attempt  to  be  physicists 
and  materialists  at  the  same  time  has  made  the  materialistic 
doctrine  essentially  unclear  in  its  meaning  as  well  as  in  its 
possibility.  The  claim  that  thought  is  the  product  of  organ- 
ization leaves  the  sense  of  this  production  undetermined. 
The  teaching  of  some  of  the  earlier  materialists  was  that 
thought  is  secreted  by  the  brain  as  bile  is  by  the  liver.  But 
as  the  secretory  organs  either  eliminate  from  the  blood  what 
was  already  in  it,  or  else  make  their  products  from  material 
contained  in  the  blood,  this  view  would  imply  either  that 
thoughts  pre-exist  in  the  blood  or  that  they  are  made  out  of 
blood.  In  either  case  thought  would  be  material,  and  might 
be  seen  if  our  eyes  were. somewhat  sharper.  But  this  notion 
was  too  coarse  for  any  patience ;  and  materialists  were  not 
long  in  denouncing  it  as  the  materialism  of  the  savage. 
They  insisted  on  the  immateriality  of  thought  as  strongly 
as  the  spiritualists ;  but  they  still  held  that  it  is  a  material 
product.  And  this  makes  it  all  the  more  necessary  to  know 


THE  SOUL.  357 

in  what  sense  this  production  is  to  be  taken.  If  thought 
be  material,  there  is  no  absurdity  in  calling  it  a  material 
product ;  but  it  is  hard  to  see  how  its  immateriality  is  to  be 
reconciled  with  its  material  origin.  All  other  material  ef- 
fects are  states,  or  phases,  of  matter ;  and  they  become  causes 
in  turn,  and  manifest  themselves  in  material  movements  and 
combinations.  The  trouble  here  arises  from  the  law  of  the 
conservation  of  energy  and  the  assumed  continuity  of  the 
physical  series.  We  have  two  series  to  deal  with — first,  the 
physical  elements  in  motion,  and,  second,  the  resulting 
thought-series.  According  to  the  materialist,  the  first  series 
is  the  independent  one ;  and,  as  a  physicist,  he  must  view  it 
as  subject  only  to  the  laws  of  force  and  motion.  If  now  we 
aim  to  make  the  physical  series  self-contained  and  indepen- 
dent, we  must  deny  that  physical  energy  ever  becomes  any- 
thing else.  For  if  physical  energy  is  really  spent  in  pro- 
ducing thought  as  thought,  the  continuity  of  the  physical 
series  would  be  broken,  and  energy  would  disappear  from 
the  physical  into  the  mental  realm.  In  that  case,  either 
energy  would  be  lost,  or  thoughts  would  be  as  real  and  as 
active  as  things.  The  latter  view  cannot  commend  itself  to 
us  as  materialists,  and  hence  we  are  shut  up  to  the  view  that 
the  physical  series  is  self-contained  and  independent.  It 
suffers  no  loss  and  no  irruption.  Both  energy  and  continu- 
ity are  absolutely  conserved.  Each  physical  antecedent  is 
entirely  exhausted  in  its  physical  consequent ;  and  conversely 
each  physical  consequent  is  fully  explained  by  its  physical 
antecedent.  In  the  strictest  sense,  the  physical  series  goes 
along  by  itself,  and  subject  only  to  the  laws  of  force  and 
motion.  But  in  such  a  view,  thought  as  such  cannot  be  an 
effect  of  the  physical  series;  for  under  the  law  of  conserva- 
tion there  can  be  no  effect  which  does  not  in  turn  become  a 
cause.  If  energy  is  expended,  it  produces  some  other  form 
of  energy  either  kinetic  or  potential,  and  this  new  form  pos- 
sesses all  the  causal  efficiency  of  the  old.  Hence,  as  the 
physical  series  is  assumed  to  be  continuous,  and  thought  is 


358  METAPHYSICS. 

powerless,  thought  is  shut  out  from  the  series  of  cause  and 
effect.  We  must,  then,  hold  that  physical  energy  is  never 
spent  in  producing  thought  as  thought,  but  only  in  produc- 
ing those  physical  states  which  have  thoughts  for  their  inner 
face.  These  thoughts,  again,  as  thoughts,  are  powerless. 
They  affect  the  physical  series  not  as  thoughts,  but  as  hav- 
ing physical  states  for  their  outer  face.  The  thought-series 
as  such  is  not  the  effect  of  the  physical  series,  but  simply  its 
attendant.  When  the  physical  series  is  of  a  certain  kind 
and  intensity,  it  has  a  subjective  side ;  but  the  reality,  the 
energy,  the  ground  of  movement  are  entirely  in  the  physi- 
cal series,  and  this  goes  along  by  itself.  No  study  of  this 
series  as  such  would  reveal  the  thought-series  which  accom- 
panies it. 

The  view  thus  presented  is  the  current  one  among  ma- 
terialists. From  fixing  their  thoughts  exclusively  on  the 
physical  series,  and  from  their  desire  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  doctrines  of  physics,  they  have  been  led  to  deny  all  en- 
ergy to  thought  as  such,  and  to  affirm  the  continuity  and 
independence  of  the  physical  series.  The  bearings  of  this 
doctrine  on  knowledge  we  shall  discuss  hereafter;  for  the 
present  we  continue  to  expound  the  doctrine  itself.  For 
not  even  yet  is  the  doctrine  clear.  Thought  is  reduced  to  a 
powerless  attendant  on  some  phases  of  the  physical  series,  or 
to  a  subjective  aspect  of  certain  physical  activities.  But 
there  is  no  assignable  ground  for  this  subjective  attendant 
in  general,  and  of  course  there  is  no  ground  why  it  should 
attend  as  and  when  it  does.  If  we  could  look  into  a  brain, 
we  should  see  on  this  theory  a  great  variety  of  molecules 
in  various  kinds  of  movement.  We  might  see  right-  or 
left-hand  spiral  movements,  or  circular,  or  elliptical,  or  oscil- 
latory movements.  Some  of  these  movements  would  be  at- 
tended by  thoughts  and  some  not.  But  what  is  the  ground 
of  difference  ?  Assume  that  an  elliptical  movement  of 
definite  velocity  is  attended  by  thought,  while  an  oscillatory 
movement  is  not  so  attended,  there  is  still  no  reason  why 


THE  SOUL.  359 

either  movement  should  be  attended  by  thought,  and  also 
none  why  one  should  be  thus  attended  rather  than  the  oth- 
er. Both  the  elliptical  and  the  oscillatory  movements  confine 
themselves  strictly  to  being  what  they  are ;  and  neither  by 
hypothesis  loses  anything  which  passes  into  the  thought- 
realm.  If  we  might  say  that  an  elliptical  movement  is  a 
thought,  we  might  get  along ;  but  this  view  has  been  turned 
over  to  the  savage.  But  since  the  elliptical  movement  con- 
fines itself  to  moving,  and  loses  nothing  for  purposes  of 
thinking,  the  thought  -  series  appears  as  a  gratuitous  and 
magical  addition  to  the  thing -series.  There  is  no  reason 
why  it  should  appear  at  all,  and  none  why  it  should  appear 
where  and  when  it  does.  The  most  profound  reflection 
upon  molecular  groups  and  movements  reveals  no  reason 
why  any  should  be  accompanied  by  an  incommensurable  at- 
tendant thought,  or  why  one  rather  than  another  should  be 
thus  attended.  If  there  were  a  mental  subject  in  interaction 
with  the  physical  series,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that  different 
states  of  that  series  might  be  attended  by  different  mental 
states ;  but  when  this  is  not  the  case,  the  connection  is  one 
of  pure  magic. 

Magic,  however,  is  an  evil  word,  and  we  must  seek  to  es- 
cape it.  "We  recur,  then,  to  the  doctrine  that  matter  has  a 
mental  as  well  as  a  physical  side,  and  that  the  former  is  as 
original  as  the  latter.  But  in  order  to  explain  the  form  and 
peculiar  character  of  any  specific  mental  manifestation,  we 
must  further  allow  that  the  mental  side  is  in  interaction 
with  the  physical  side.  Without  this  admission,  thought 
might  appear  at  one  place  as  well  as  at  another,  and  in  one 
form  as  well  as  in  any  other.  The  opposite  faces  in  no  way 
remove  the  necessity  and  complexity  of  this  interaction. 
Thought  in  general  is  only  a  class-term ;  the  reality  is  al- 
ways specific  thoughts  about  specific  things;  and  in  order 
that  these  thoughts  shall  appear  as,  and  where,  and  when 
they  do,  it  is  necessary  that  the  inner  series  and  the  outer 
series  shall  be  in  mutual  determination.  But  this  necessi- 


360  METAPHYSICS. 

tates  the  farther  admission  that  the  mental  series  is  as  real 
a  form  of  energy  as  the  physical  series ;  and  this  raises  the 
question  whether  matter  as  moving,  or  matter  as  thinking 
and  willing,  be  the  ultimate  fact.  These  difficulties  have  not 
been  considered  by  the  materialists  as  fully  as  could  be  de- 
sired, and  the  result  is  that  they  have  seldom  understood 
their  own  doctrine,  although  it  seems  so  clear.  They  can 
maintain  the  independence  of  the  physical  series  only  by 
affirming  the  materiality  of  thought,  or  by  making  the  con- 
nection of  the  thought-series  with  the  thing-series  one  of 
pure  magic.  Both  of  these  views  are  sheer  nonsense ;  and 
there  is  nothing  for  the  materialist  to  do  but  to  fall  back  on 
the  doctrine  that  the  physical  and  the  mental  series  are  op- 
posite sides  of  the  one  reality,  and  that  both  are  equally 
real.  But  this  view  also  is  unclear  until  the  relation  of 
these  two  sides  is  more  clearly  determined.  It  may  mean 
that  there  are  two  orders  of  energy — physical  and  mental — 
which  never  interchange.  In  that  case,  both  their  coexist- 
ence and  their  harmony  would  be  an  opaque  fact,  and  our 
monism  would  vanish  into  hopeless  dualism.  It  may  also 
mean  that  the  same  energy  appears  in  both  series — in  the 
one  as  moving  matter,  and  in  the  other  as  thought  and  feel- 
ing. In  that  case,  we  should  have  a  magical  passage  back 
and  forth  of  energy ;  and  thoughts  and  feelings,  as  well  as 
physical  forces,  would  become  determinant  of  the  course  of 
things.  Energy  would  constantly  disappear  from  the  phys- 
ical realm  without  any  physical  effect;  and  physical  effects 
would  be  found  which  would  not  be  explained  by  their 
physical  antecedents.  But  such  a  mixing-up  of  two  realms 
as  this  would  imply  would  be  fatal -to  all  clearness  of  thought. 
There  would  be  nothing  in  this  view  to  forbid  even  the  wild 
notion  that  the  whole  physical  realm  might  disappear  into 
the  realm  of  thought,  so  that  thought  and  its  laws  should  be 
all.  Neither  physics  nor  metaphysics  could  long  content 
itself  with  notions  so  void  and  formless. 

A  final  view,  and  one  to  which  materialists  commonly  re- 


THE  SOUL.  361 

sort  when  driven  to  these  straits,  is,  either  that  thought  is  a 
phenomenon  of  matter,  or  that  both  mentality  and  material- 
ity are  the  opposite  phenomena  of  the  same  substance.  Phe- 
nomenon is  the  word  which  is  supposed  to  remove  all  diffi- 
culty ;  but,  unfortunately,  it  is  the  most  treacherous  ally  the 
materialist  can  have.  For  a  phenomenon  implies  not  only 
something  which  appears,  but  also  a  subject  to  which  it  ap- 
pears. A  phenomenon  as  such  cannot  exist  apart  from  con- 
sciousness. When,  then,  the  thought-side  of  matter  is  said 
to  be  phenomenal,  the  question  at  once  emerges,  What  is  the 
subject,  and  where  the  consciousness,  for  which  the  phenom- 
ena exist  ?  From  the  nature  of  consciousness,  the  thought- 
series  is  never  phenomenal,  but  is  the  necessary  condition 
of  all  phenomena ;  or  if  we  insist  on  calling  it  phenomenal, 
it  is  never  phenomenal  to  the  external  observer,  but  only  to 
the  inner  self.  But  materialism  provides  no  inner  self,  and 
hence  it  cannot  speak  of  phenomena  in  any  proper  sense  of 
the  term.  The  materialist,  then,  cannot  escape  the  difficul- 
ties connected  with  the  relation  of  the  physical  to  the  men- 
tal series  by  making  either  or  both  phenomenal ;  for  the 
very  term  implies  the  mental  subject  which  the  materialist 
denies. 

We  think  it  clear  that  materialism  is  far  from  plain  in  its 
meaning,  to  say  nothing  of  its  truth.  When  forced  to  ex- 
press itself  clearly,  it  is  with  difficulty  prevented  from  van- 
ishing into  absurdity.  We  have  next  to  inquire  into  its 
adequacy  to  the  facts  of  our  mental  life.  If  we  should  en- 
dow the  elements  with  an  inner  life  which  manifests  itself 
under  appropriate  conditions,  would  it  be  any  more  possible 
to  dispense  with  the  conception  of  a  substantial  soul  ?  We 
think  it  possible  to  show  that  this  view  both  fails  to  explain 
the  most  prominent  facts  of  our  mental  life,  and  also  leads 
to  the  overthrow  of  all  knowledge  and  science. 

To  begin  with  the  first  point,  thought  and  feeling  demand 
a  subject.  In  experience,  we  know  nothing  of  thoughts  and 


362  METAPHYSICS. 

feelings  existing  apart  by  themselves.  The  universal  fact 
is,  not  feelings  and  thoughts  exist ;  but  I  think  and  I  feel. 
The  empiricist,  though  he  claims  to  build  on  experience, 
ignores  this  fact  altogether,  and  attempts  to  build  the  mind 
out  of  sensations.  In  fact,  however,  a  sensation  is  a  purely 
abstract  term  taken  from  the  affections  of  a  sentient  subject, 
and  is  totally  without  meaning  considered  in  itself.  But 
the  empiricist  breaks  the  word  from  the  only  connection  in 
which  it  has  any  meaning,  and  then  parades  it  as  the  basis 
of  the  mind  itself.  I  think  and  feel  is,  then,  the  universal 
fact.  What  is  the  I  which  thinks  and  feels?  The  material- 
ist, aided  and  abetted  by  the  empiricist,  says  that  the  I  is  only 
the  sum  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings ;  and  that  there  is  no 
thinking  and  sentient  subject  in  the  case.  But  the  empiri- 
cist is  a  dangerous  ally  for  the  materialist ;  for  upon  occasion 
he  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  matter  itself  is  only  a 
projection  of  feelings  and  sensations.  Besides,  good  sense 
protests  that  it  does  not  know  what  is  meant  by  thoughts 
and  feelings  without  a  subject;  and  consciousness  also  in- 
sists that  I  do  think  and  feel.  Here  the  materialist  may 
say  that  of  course  I  think  and  feel,  but  the  I  is  just  the  sum 
of  these  thoughts  and  feelings.  This,  however,  when  put 
into  other  words  becomes  hopeless  nonsense ;  for  it  amounts 
to  saying  that  the  sum  of  my  thoughts  think,  and  the'sum 
of  my  feelings  feel.  But  a  sum  as  such  is  nothing;  the 
things  summed  are  the  realities.  Hence  the  statement  is 
that  thoughts  think  and  feelings  feel.  But  to  think  is  to 
have  thoughts,  and  to  feel  is  to  have  feelings;  hence, 
thoughts  have  thoughts  and  feelings  have  feelings.  It 
would  also  be  an  interesting  problem  to  determine  the  re- 
lation of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  which  are  had  to  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  which  have  them.  To  escape  this 
farrago  of  unintelligible  absurdity,  we  must  return  to  the 
notion  of  a  self  which  really  thinks  and  feels. 

But  may  we  not  say  that  the  body  or  the  brain  thinks 
and  feels?     Of  course,  there  must  be  a  subject  of  the  men- 


THE  SOUL.  363 

tal  states ;  and  that  subject  is  the  organism  itself.  We  have 
endowed  the  elements  with  a  mystical  inner  life,  and  why 
may  not  the  mentality  of  the  self  be  merely  the  integral  of 
the  nascent  mentality  of  the  elements  themselves?  This 
notion,  which  underlies  most  of  the  monistic  doctrines,  is 
one  of  the  crudest  fancies  ever  begot  in  an  unclear  brain. 
If  we  reflect  upon  it,  we  see  that  it  conceives  of  mentality 
as  a  kind  of  stuff  which  can  be  heaped  up.  One  writer, 
indeed,  speaks  of  a  "  mind-stuff  "  in  all  matter  which  is  im- 
perceptible in  the  inorganic  state,  but  which,  when  aggre- 
gated in  certain  ways,  reveals  itself  in  mental  products. 
The  same  writer  elsewhere  speaks  of  the  doctrine  that 
thought  is  material  as  the  crude  materialism  of  the  savage ; 
and  yet  this  fancy  of  "  mind-stuff "  is  the  same  thing  in 
another  form.  But  the  mentality  of  the  elements  exists 
only  as  a  quality  of  the  elements  themselves,  and  as  such 
can  never  be  separated  from  them  or  aggregated  in  any 
way.  The  elements  themselves  may  be  variously  aggregat- 
ed, but  their  qualities  admit  of  no  aggregation.  When,  then, 
we  say  that  the  body  thinks,  we  are  met  by  the  following 
difficulty :  The  body  as  an  aggregate  has  no  reality.  The 
realities  are  the  elements,  and  they  do  whatever  is  done. 
The  body  is  like  the  public  in  political  science.  We  at- 
tribute thoughts,  feelings,  and  actions  to  the  public,  and  yet 
the  public  is  and  does  nothing.  The  reality  is  the  individ- 
uals which  make  up  society.  When,  then,  we  say  that  the 
public  thinks,  we  mean  only  that  the  citizens  think;  and 
when  we  say  that  the  public  holds  this  or  that  opinion,  we 
mean  that  the  majority  of  the  citizens  hold  the  opinion. 
The  opinion,  again,  is  not  something  composed  of  shreds  of 
private  opinion,  but  it  exists  complete  in  each  individual 
mind.  The  same  considerations  apply  to  the  notion  that  the 
body  thinks.  This  can  only  mean  that  the  elements,  which 
compose  the  body,  think,  and  this,  again,  can  only  mean, 
not  that  my  complete  thought  and  feeling  is  divided  among 
the  elements,  but  that  each  one  of  the  elements  reproduces 


364:  METAPHYSICS. 

in  itself  that  complete  thought  and  feeling;  just  as  public 
opinion  is  not  split  up  among  individuals,  but  is  reproduced 
in  completeness  by  each  individual.  So,  then,  to  explain 
my  mental  life,  instead  of  positing  myself  as  a  substantial 
ego,  and  as  the  subject  of  my  mental  life,  I  posit  a  myriad 
of  substantial  egos,  each  of  which  must  be  able  to  say,  I 
think,  I  feel,  etc. 

And  with  all  this  abundance  of  mental  subjects,  my  own 
mental  life  is  not  yet  explained ;  for  I  myself  feel  and  think 
as  well  as  the  elements.  My  mental  experience  is  my  own 
and  not  the  elements'.  Now  what  is  this  particular  self 
which  reveals  itself  in  my  experience  ?  The  elements  may 
think  and  feel,  but  their  thinking  and  feeling  do  not  explain 
mine,  any  more  than  the  thinking  and  feeling  of  fifty  men 
explain  the  thought  and  feeling  of  a  fifty-first.  But  the 
problem  is  to  explain  my  thinking  and  feeling,  and  not  the 
hypothetical  feeling  and  thinking  of  the  elements.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  no  interaction  of  separate  minds  could  produce 
the  phenomenon  of  a  new  mind,  or  could  produce  thoughts 
which  should  not  belong  to  the  individuals;  but  when  the 
same  problem  is  proposed  for  solution  by  the  atoms,  the 
mystery  which  surrounds  the  matter  inclines  us  to  overlook 
the  fact  that  thought  is  indivisible  and  must  always  have  a 
subject;  and  hence  we  think  that  something  may  be  done 
in  the  latter  case  which  would  be  absurd  in  the  former. 
No  monist  would  claim  that  when  a  certain  number,  n,  of 
the  elements  combine  in  a  brain,  they  produce  a  new  ele- 
ment as  the  subject  of  the  mental  life ;  but  so  long  as  they 
decline  this  view,  they  leave  my  thought  and  feeling  unex- 
plained. There  is  no  way  out  of  this  difficulty  but  to  deny 
my  own  thinking  and  feeling,  or  to  admit  that  there  is  some 
one  element  which  I  call  myself,  and  which  is  the  substan- 
tial subject  of  my  mental  life.  But  along  with  this  admis- 
sion vanishes  all  need  for  the  extravagant  and  useless  theory 
that  each  of  the  elements  is  a  thinking  subject. 

The  view  to  which  we  have  objected,  in  the  last  paragraph, 


THE  SOUL.  365 

rests  largely  upon  the  fancy  that  an  aggregate  can  do  some- 
thing for  which  the  components  are  not  responsible ;  and 
this  again  rests  upon  a  certain  sense-bondage  which  more  or 
less  enslaves  us  all.  As  we  think  under  the  form  of  sub- 
ject and  attribute,  we  treat  every  object  of  thought  as  a  uni- 
tary subject.  Hence,  thought  often  attributes  a  factitious  uni- 
ty to  its  objects.  The  mass,  the  crowd,  the  aggregate,  the 
sum,  are  all  treated  as  units ;  and  thus  their  true  character  is 
overlooked.  Even  when  we  recognize  that  their  unity  is 
only  in  our  thought,  or  that,  in  reality,  they  are  a  collection 
of  individuals,  we  still  tend  to  treat  the  action  of  the  mass 
as  a  unit,  and  not  as  only  the  resultant  of  the  individual  ac- 
tivities. But  this  is  a  mistake.  The  elements  may  act  dif- 
ferently in  different  combinations,  but  whatever  they  do,  it 
is  the  elements  in  combination  which  do  it,  and  not  the 
combination  itself.  The  latter  is,  and  does,  nothing.  The 
action  of  a  mass  is  only  the  integral  of  the  actions  of  the 
comppnents,  and  exists  as  a  unit  only  in  our  thought.  We 
treat  it  as  a  unit  in  our  calculations,  but  all  the  while  we 
know  that  it  is  a  sum.  No  matter  what  the  nature  of  the 
combination  may  be,  whether  physical  or  chemical,  this  re- 
sult holds.  So  long  as  thought  and  feeling  demand  a  sub- 
ject which  thinks  and  feels,  it  is  impossible  to  escape  admit- 
ting a  single  and  substantial  subject  of  the  mental  life.  A 
compound  subject  can  exist  only  in  thought ;  in  fact,  its 
components  are  the  only  realities. 

But  after  all,  it  will  be  urged,  may  not  several  agents  con- 
spire to  produce  an  effect  which  is  perfectly  simple,  but 
which  is  nevertheless  the  resultant  of  their  combined  ac- 
tion ?  All  the  elements  in  the  earth  conspire  to  set  an  un- 
supported body  in  motion.  The  conspiring  activities  are 
many,  but  the  resulting  motion  is  one  and  simple.  Now  if 
such  a  motion  should  become  self-conscious,  it  would  doubt- 
less conclude  that  its  cause  must  be  one.  By  no  amount  of 
analysis  would  it  detect  any  trace  of  the  myriad  original 
impulses  which  unite  in  producing  the  motion.  Why  may 


366  METAPHYSICS. 

we  not,  then,  consider  the  ego,  which  seems  simple,  as  really 
the  product  of  many  conspiring  activities?  We  answer, 
in  the  first  place,  that  this  view  reduces  to  a  denial  that 
thought  and  feeling  must  have  a  subject.  The  ego,  which 
seems  to  act  and  feel,  is  really  only  the  way  in  which  the 
activities  of  the  elements  appear.  ISTor  does  it  tell  to  whom 
these  activities  appear.  If  we  say  they  appear  to  the  ego 
itself,  that  is  to  say  that  the  activities  of  the  elements  ap- 
pear to  the  activities  of  the  elements,  which  is  sheer  non- 
sense. We  must  never  forget  that  an  appearance  is  impos- 
sible without  something  which  appears  and  something  to 
which  it  appears.  We  cannot  make  the  ego  an  appearance 
without  positing  another  ego  to  which  it  appears,  and  so  on 
until  we  get  tired.  But  the  necessity  of  the  ego  can  never 
be  transcended.  In  the  next  place,  the  objection  proposes 
something  quite  unintelligible,  that  is,  to  view  our  thoughts 
and  feelings  as  compounded  of  the  activities  of  the  elements. 
But  the  activities  of  the  elements  are  nothing  but  their 
mutual  determination  to  some  specific  state ;  they  are  noth- 
ing which  can  exist  apart  from  or  between  them.  The  imag- 
ination that  force  is  an  airy  something  which  can  leave  its 
subject  and  exist  separately  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  view. 
And,  finally,  the  objection  is  cancelled  by  the  illustration 
on  which  it  rests.  The  conspiring  elements  do  not  produce 
effects  in  the  void,  but  in  a  body  to  be  moved.  The  motion 
which  is  supposed  to  be  conscious  is  not  a  self-existing  mo- 
tion, but  the  motion  of  something.  The  fact  that  this  re- 
flecting motion  could  not  find  in  itself  any  traces  of  its 
external  causes,  would  in  no  way  affect  the  truth  that  the 
motion  has  a  single  and  real  subject.  When  all  these  points 
are  remembered,  the  illustration  loses  its  significance.  The 
elements  act  not  on  the  void  to  produce  thoughts,  but  on  the 
mind ;  and  these  thoughts,  when  produced,  are  the  acts  of 
the  mind  itself.  It  may  be  that  the  external  ground  of  a 
mental  state  is  plural,  and  that  the  state  itself  shows  no 
trace  of  this  plurality ;  but  none  the  less  is  the  subject  of 


THE  SOUL.  367 

that  state  one  and  indivisible.  "We  conclude,  then,  once 
more,  that  if  thought  must  have  a  subject,  that  subject  can- 
not be  any  aggregate  whatever,  but  must  be  a  single  agent. 

The  nature  of  an  aggregate  makes  it  impossible  to  view  it 
as  a  true  subject  or  agent.  "We  next  point  out  that  the  nat- 
ure of  thought  and  consciousness  makes  it  impossible  that 
they  should  exist  without  a  truly  unitary  subject.  The 
materialist  and  empiricist  commonly  assume  that  thought 
and  consciousness  can  exist  as  passive  states,  or  as  simple 
affections  of  sensibility,  whereas  they  both  alike  exist  only 
through  a  mental  activity  of  distinction  and  comparison. 
Thinking  consists  in  relating,  and  depends  on  discrimina- 
tion and  comparison.  This  doctrine  has  been  elaborated  at 
greatest  length  by  Prof.  Ulrici,  but,  oddly  enough,  Prof.  Bain 
also  insists  upon  it  as  fundamental.  To  think,  we  must  dis- 
criminate. AVe  must  first  distinguish  any  affection  from 
the  self,  and  must  then  relate  it  to  the  self  as  our  own.  "We 
must  also  distinguish  the  various  objects  of  thought  from  one 
another,  and  must  then  bind  them  together  in  relations. 
But  in  order  to  do  this,  the  subject  of  the  relating  act  must 
be  in  the  strictest  sense  one.  If  one  subject  should  think 
one  member  of  the  relation,  and  another  subject  should 
think  the  other  member,  no  relation  and  no  distinction 
could  be  discovered  or  established.  Eelation  is  impossible 
except  as  the  related  objects  are  grasped  and  compared  in 
the  unity  of  the  same  act  and  agent.  Without  this  unity, 
premise  and  conclusion  would  fall  hopelessly  asunder,  and 
the  possibility  of  thought  would  perish. 

The  same  is  true  of  consciousness.  This  also  exists  only 
through  acts  of  relation,  and  hence  only  through  the  unity 
of  the  subject.  A  consciousness  which  should  grasp  only 
the  present  state  would  be  no  consciousness  at  all.  The 
consciousness  of  an  instant  is  a  vanishing  quantity ;  and  if 
there  were  no  means  of  summing  up  many  states  into  one, 
consciousness  would  perish  as  fast  as  it  is  born.  The  fleet- 
ing state  must  in  some  way  be  fixed  before  consciousness 


368  METAPHYSICS. 

is  possible ;  and  this  can  be  done  only  by  an  abiding  subject 
which  gathers  up  into  the  unity  of  its  existence  the  states 
which  else  were  lost.  In  any  act  of  consciousness  we  find  a 
composite  of  this  kind.  Present  states,  remembered  states, 
imagined  states,  all  enter  into  a  single  phase  of  conscious- 
ness. But  these  fall  hopelessly  asunder,  except  as  they  are 
the  states  of  a  common  subject.  At  this  point  both  mate- 
rialist and  empiricist  commit  a  grave  oversight.  They  both 
speak  of  consciousness  as  a  series  or  succession  of  states,  and 
never  raise  the  question  how  a  series  is  possible,  or  how  suc- 
cession can  be  known  as  such.  Succession  can  be  known 
only  by  something  which  abides.  We  must  be  able  to  con- 
trast the  passing  with  the  abiding  before  succession  can  be 
recognized.  Hence,  a  consciousness  which  was  only  a  succes- 
sion could  never  be  aware  of  itself  as  such.  Moreover,  suc- 
cession is  not  a  series.  That  things  should  really  follow  one 
another  would  not  constitute  them  a  series.  They  form  a  se- 
ries only  as  the  members  of  the  succession  are  grasped  in  one 
and  the  same  thought.  The  necessary  condition,  therefore, 
for  the  existence  of  a  series  is,  that  one  and  the  same  being 
shall  grasp  all  its  members  in  one  thought.  If  the  subject 
were  composite,  the  series  or  the  succession  could  never  be 
known  to  exist.  Hence  the  many  can  exist,  as  such,  only 
for  the  one.  Apart  from  the  unifying  thought,  the  many  is 
but  a  repetition  of  the  individual.  It  is  not  number,  but 
the  unrelated  unit  repeated,  and  it  becomes  properly  plural 
only  in  thought.  Hence  we  say  that  not  merely  our  con- 
sciousness of  unity,  but  much  more  our  consciousness  of 
plurality,  is  impossible  without  the  strict  unity  of  the  think- 
ing subject.  It  is  often  claimed  that  the  unity  of  self  is 
given  in  consciousness,  and  indeed  this  is  not  far  from  the 
fact.  But  the  materialist  claims  that  this  consciousness  is 
delusive.  We  reply  that  consciousness  of  any  sort  is  im- 
possible without  the  unity  of  the  conscious  subject.  This  is 
demanded  not  merely  by  the  consciousness  of  unity  and 
identity,  but  still  more  by  the  consciousness  of  plurality  and 


THE  SOUL.  369 

change.  It  does  not  follow  that  we  are  unitary  agents  be- 
cause we  appear  to  ourselves  as  such,  but  because  we  appear 
to  ourselves  at  all. 

"We  pass  next  to  the  fact  of  memory.  This  is  one  of 
the  capital  facts  of  our  mental  life,  and  demands  explanation. 
Now,  physiology  teaches  that  the  body  is  incessantly  chang- 
ing, but  none  the  less  does  the  personality  remain  unchanged. 
I  am  the  same  person  that  I  was  years  ago,  and  I  now  recall 
the  events  which  then  happened  to  me.  Here  is  another 
fact  which  every  theory  must  explain.  Spiritualism  explains 
it  by  saying  that  the  soul  is  a  substantial  subject  which  has 
existed  through  these  years,  and  which  is  able  to  gather  up 
its  parts  and  carry  it  with  it.  Materialism  rejects  this  view, 
but  none  the  less  must  it  account  for  the  fact.  There  is 
memory;  what  remembers?  Consciousness  says  I,  the 
abiding  person,  remember ;  but  materialism  says,  there  is  no 
abiding  self.  What,  then,  does  remember  ?  Sometimes  it 
says,  the  brain  remembers ;  but  this  we  cannot  allow,  for 
the  reasons  recently  given.  If  the  brain  remembers,  that 
can  only  mean  that  the  elements  which  make  the  brain  re- 
member. But  the  elements  in  the  brain  to-day  are  not  the  ele- 
ments which  composed  the  brain  a  month  or  a  year  ago. 
And  yet  these  elements,  which  now  appear  here  for  the  first 
time,  have,  somehow  or  other,  got  possession  of  my  past 
mental  life.  Here  is  a  capital  fact.  The  materialist  has 'to 
explain  it.  Here  is  the  passing  stream  of  atoms,  but  here  is 
the  abiding  person.  The  atoms  which  had  my  past  experi- 
ence have  gone,  and  we  should  suppose  they  would  have 
carried  the  experience  with  them.  But,  strangely  enough, 
the  experience  has  remained,  and  these  new  atoms  know  all 
about  it.  Did  the  passing  atoms  whisper  it  to  the  new-com- 
ers as  they  slipped  out?  Were  they  able  to  give  a  kind  of 
password  or  countersign  as  they  went  away  ?  And  were 
the  incoming  atoms  able  so  to  improve  the  hint  given  that 
we  should  never  dream  of  the  change  ?  But  this  would  be 
to  turn  science  into  sheer  fetichism,  and  to  invoke  magic 
24 


370  METAPHYSICS. 

as  an  explanation.  No  one  can  seriously  believe  that  any 
thing  of  the  kind  takes  place.  Yet  here  are  the  elements 
which,  by  hypothesis,  are  here  for  the  first  time,  and  yet  they 
have  with  them  the  whole  of  our  mental  life.  The  materi- 
alist must  give  some  explanation. 

To  escape  these  whimsical  implications  of  his  doctrine 
the  materialist  often  resorts  to  an  illustration.  He  will  not 
allow  that  the  elements  remember,  but  there  is  remembering 
without  anything  which  remembers.  In  a  sense,  he  says, 
the  body  remembers  its  past  experience.  In  particular, 
scars  abide  across  all  bodily  change,  and  never  wash  nor 
wear  out.  Here  we  have  a  case  of  physical  memory.  Un- 
fortunately, this  is  only  a  figure  of  speech,  and  the  illustra- 
tion fails  to  illustrate.  If  the  scar  were  conscious  of  itself 
as  a  unitanT,  thinking  subject,  and  an  abiding  personality, 
then  the  illustration  would  be  pertinent.  Until  we  have 
some  ground  for  regarding  a  scar  as  a  conscious  ego,  we  shall 
reckon  this  illustration  among  the  superficialities  which,  like 
a  clinging  curse,  seem  inseparable  from  materialistic  reason- 
ing. In  fact,  a  scar  is  not  ontologically  the  same  for  any 
two  consecutive  instants ;  but,  like  a  river,  has  its  identity 
only  in  the  mind  of  the  observer.  The  same  is  true  for  the 
claim  that  the  identity  of  the  personality  rests  on  the  iden- 
tity of  the  body.  In  a  proper  sense,  the  visible  body  has 
no  identity.  As  Leibnitz  long  ago  pointed  out,  we  know 
of  only  one  case  of  true  identity,  and  that  is  the  case  of  the 
conscious  spirit.  This  is  the  type  of  all  unity  and  identity 
to  us,  and  we  know  of  no  other.  Now  if  we  allow  the  ex- 
istence of  a  unitary  soul  in  connection  with  the  body,  the 
facts  of  memory  become  clear  and  luminous.  If  we  deny 
it,  they  are  utterly  opaque  and  unintelligible.  The  mental 
life  falls  asunder,  and  becomes  merely  a  magical  illusion. 

But  this  is  not  the  end  of  the  difficulty,  and  a  more  heroic 
treatment  is  necessary.  As  materialists,  we  must  allow  that 
memory,  like  all  mental  acts,  is  a  function  of  matter,  and, 
hence,  that  precisely  similar  bodies  must  have  precisely  sim- 


THE  SOUL.  371 

ilar  memories,  no  matter  what  their  past  history  may  have 
been.  If  we  had  an  exact  reproduction  of  any  body  what- 
ever, we  should  have  also  an  exact  reproduction  of  the  per- 
son. All  the  memories,  doubts,  difficulties,  expectations, 
likes  and  dislikes,  knowledge  and  ignorance  of  the  real  per- 
son would  be  perfectly  reproduced.  Memory,  therefore,  has 
no  relation  to  time.  It  is  only  a  peculiar  phase  of  mental 
action,  and  the  distinction  of  past  and  present  is  delusive. 
To  many  this  view  will  seem  distinctly  absurd ;  but,  at  all 
events,  consistent  materialism  is  shut  up  to  it.  Any  theory 
which  makes  the  mental  life  depend  entirely  on  the  form  or 
mode  of  combination  of  the  elements  is  forced  to  deny  that 
memory  has  any  relation  to  time,  but  is  only  a  special  form 
of  mental  illusion.  We  do  not  remember  experiences  as 
past  because  we  really  had  such  experiences,  but  because  the 
brain  is  in  a  certain  state.  Nor  can  we  get  relief  from  this 
conclusion  by  saying  that  the  brain  itself  is  produced  by  past 
experience ;  for  we  can  know  nothing  of  a  past  experience 
except  by  trusting  the  report  of  memory  as  to  personal  iden- 
tity, and  this  the  theory  makes  impossible.  In  addition  to 
all  these  bizarre  difficulties,  we  must  add  that  memory  itself, 
like  thought,  demands  a  relating  and  discriminating  activity. 
The  simple  recurrence  of  a  like  experience  is  not  memory. 
The  experience  must  be  recognized  and  located  before  it 
becomes  an  act  of  memory.  Hence  we  must  say  that  mem- 
ory, thought,  and  consciousness  are  alike  impossible  without 
a  unitary  subject. 

It  is  a  long  time  since  we  heard  from  the  relativist  or 
phenomenalist ;  it  is,  therefore,  no  surprise  to  find  him  ob- 
jecting at  this  point.  This  conclusion,  he  insists,  though 
true  for  phenomena,  is  not  true  for  noumena.  The  ego  as 
it  appears  is  indeed  the  unitary  subject  of  the  mental  life ; 
but  this  fact  allows  no  conclusion  as  to  the  unity  of  the 
noumenal  ego.  A  first  remark  in  reply  would  be,  that  if 
the  unity  of  the  ego  in  experience  does  not  warrant  us  in 


372  METAPHYSICS. 

concluding  to  its  substantial  unity,  still  less  does  it  warrant 
us  in  concluding  to  its  composition.  A  thing  must  always 
be  allowed  to  be  what  it  seems  unless  reasons  can  be  given 
for  going  behind  the  appearance.  But  the  true  answer  to 
the  objection  lies  in  a  fact  dwelt  upon  in  the  Introduction. 
We  there  saw  that  the  question,  What  is  being  ?  reduces  al- 
ways to  this  other,  How  must  we  think  about  being  ?  The 
ego  as  we  know  it  is  the  only  ego  there  is  to  know ;  and  the 
only  question  which  can  arise  concerning  it  is,  How  must 
we  think  of  it  ?  We  insist  that  in  the  face  of  all  the  facts 
we  must  think  of  it  as  one  and  not  many,  as  simple  and  not 
compound.  Objections  to  this  conclusion  must  take  the 
form  of  showing  that  the  facts  can  be  otherwise  interpreted 
in  articulate  thought.  Objections  based  on  the  phenomenal- 
ity  of  human  thought  rest  at  bottom  on  the  crude  fancy 
that  there  may  be  some  form  of  thought  which  can  grasp 
reality  otherwise  than  by  thinking  of  it.  This  style  of  ob- 
jection dates  back  to  Kant.  In  order  to  carry  through  his 
phenomenalism  of  thought  and  knowledge,  he  denied  the 
possibility  of  concluding  from  the  unity  of  the  ego  in  con- 
sciousness to  its  unity  in  being,  alleging  that  if  such  a  con- 
clusion were  allowed,  it  would  overturn  his  entire  criticism. 
But  this  reason  was  purely  personal,  and  has  no  value  in 
logic.  Indeed,  unless  we  are  allowed  to  infer  from  phenom- 
ena something  concerning  the  nature  of  noumena,  the  nou- 
mena  must  disappear  entirely  as  not  accounting  for  anything. 
They  are  not  revealed  in  phenomena.  None  of  the  laws  of 
thought  apply  to  them.  They  come  under  none  of  the  cate- 
gories. They  are  utterly  gratuitous.  Such  was  the  conclu- 
sion which  Fichte  drew,  and  such  is  the  conclusion  which 
reason  necessarily  draws  from  any  theory  which  will  not 
allow  that  noumena  are  truly  revealed  in  and  through  phe- 
nomena. But  Kant's  regard  for  his  system  led  him  to  use 
extremely  feeble  arguments  in  his  criticism  of  rational  psy- 
chology. He  insists  strongly  upon  the  unity  of  the  empiri- 
cal ego,  and  on  the  "synthetic  unity  of  apperception,"  as  a 


THE  SOUL.  373 

necessary  condition  of  consciousness;  but  he  disputes  the 
speculative  conclusion  that  the  transcendental  ego  must  be 
a  numerical  unity.  Unfortunately,  the  nature  of  this  em- 
pirical ego,  and  its  relation  to  the  transcendental  ego,  are 
left  very  unclear.  If  \ve  say  that  the  empirical  ego  is  the 
form  under  which  the  noumenal  subject  appears,  the  ques- 
tion at  once  arises,  To  whom  does  the  empirical  ego  appear, 
and  what  recognizes  the  appearance  ?  There  can  be  no  ap- 
pearance without  something  which  appears  and  something 
to  which  it  appears.  If  the  ego  is  the  appearance,  what  is 
the  ego  which  perceives  it  ?  If  it  be  said  that  the  empirical 
ego  is  but  the  aggregate  of  conscious  mental  states,  we  must 
know  the  subject  of  these  mental  states.  It  cannot  be  the 
empirical  ego,  for  that  is  the  states  themselves;  and  it  would 
be  quite  absurd  to  speak  of  an  aggregate  of  states  as  its  own 
subject.  If  we  should  push  these  questions,  it  would  at  last 
appear  that  the  transcendental  ego  is  not  something  lying 
beyond  all  consciousness  and  knowledge,  but  is  simply  that 
substantial  self  revealed  in  consciousness  and  thought  as  one. 
Besides,  as  we  have  pointed  out  before,  the  unity  of  the  ego 
is  not  affirmed  because  we  appear  to  ourselves  as  units,  but 
because  we  appear  to  ourselves  at  all.  The  unity  of  the 
true  ego  is  necessary  to  the  existence  of  any  mental  life. 

But,  says  Kant,  the  unity  and  identity  of  the  subject  does 
not  prove  the  unity  and  identity  of  the  substance.  He  no- 
where attempts  to  show  how  an  aggregate  can  give  rise  to 
a  unitary  consciousness ;  but  he  uses  an  illustration  to  show 
how  identity  of  the  subject  might  be  combined  with  non- 
identity  of  the  substance.  When  an  elastic  ball  strikes  an- 
other of  equal  mass,  the  motion  of  the  former  is  transferred 
to  the  latter.  He  speaks  of  this  as  one  body  transferring 
its  state  to  another.  In  the  same  way,  he  suggests,  a  men- 
tal substance  might  transfer  its  entire  consciousness  to  an- 
other. The  consciousness  being  thus  passed  along  from 
one  to  another,  the  subject  would  remain  identical,  while 
the  substance  would  be  incessantly  changing.  Kant  was 


374:  METAPHYSICS. 

doubtless  led  to  this  strange  notion  by  his  anxiety  to  ward 
off  all  attempts  at  ontological  knowledge ;  but  whatever  its 
ground,  and  however  great  Kant's  genius,  this  is  certainly  a 
case  where  good  Homer  nods.  For,  in  the  first  place,  states 
are  incapable  of  transfer  except  in  a  figurative  sense.  The 
moving  ball  does  not  transfer  its  motion,  but  sets  another 
ball  in  motion.  Kant  adopts  here  the  crudest  possible  con- 
ception of  inherence,  and  speaks  as  if  states,  or  attributes, 
could  be  loosened  from  their  subject  and  transferred  bodily 
to  something  else.  The  subject  appears  as  the  bearer  of 
properties  instead  of  the  agent  which,  by  its  activity,  founds 
properties.  Hence  the  idea  of  a  bodily  transfer.  This  no- 
tion we  have  transcended.  The  only  possible  conception  of 
his  illustration  would  be  that  one  substance  might  by  its 
action  on  another  cause  that  other  to  assume  a  mental  state 
like  its  own,  so  that  it  should  seem  to  itself  to  have  had  a 
past  experience  when  it  had  not  had  it.  The  tenability  of 
this  conception  would  be  another  thing.  It  posits  a  mag- 
ical, if  not  an  absurd,  process  to  explain  a  fact  which  admits 
of  far  easier  explanation.  It  indulges  in  gratuitous  scepti- 
cism after  the  fashion  of  Descartes,  with  his  hypothetical 
devil,  who  may  be  making  fools  of  all  of  us.  But  we  must 
never  forget  that  the  materialist  is  not  justified  by  making 
assumptions  which  admit  of  no  refutation ;  he  must  rather 
show  that  his  views  offer  the  simplest  and  most  rational  ac- 
count of  the  facts.  But  this  notion  of  a  transmitted  con- 
sciousness is  a  gratuitous  violation  of  appearances  instead  of 
their  explanation.  Moreover,  it  fails  to  do  what  it  is  invent- 
ed for.  For,  in  the  case  supposed,  there  would  not  be  a  sin- 
gle and  identical  mental  life,  but  a  number  of  similar  mental 
lives,  each  of  which  has  its  unitary  subject.  There  would 
be  much  that  is  magical  in  such  a  view;  but  the  point  in 
dispute,  the  unity  of  the  being,  is  admitted.  If,  however, 
the  mental  subject,  the  conscious,  active  ego,  is  passed  along, 
it  would  by  hypothesis  be  the  same  mental  subject  after  all. 
The  ego,  the  personality,  would  not  change,  but  only  the 


THE  SOUL.  375 

unknown  and  inactive  substance.  But  this  substance  is  a 
myth.  Here  appears  a  crude  notion  of  substance  in  Kant's 
view.  He  views  it  as  a  mysterious  substratum,  whereas  sub- 
stance and  subject,  or  agent,  are  identical.  We  have  repudi- 
ated the  substratum-notion  as  the  product  of  sense-bondage. 
That  which  can  act  and  be  acted  upon  is  the  essential  idea 
of  substance.  When,  then,  we  have  found  the  mental  sub- 
ject, we  have  found  the  mental  substance,  for  subject  and 
substance  are  identical.  Kant's  admission  of  the  necessary 
unity  of  the  mental  subject  is  all  we  ask.  The  mental  sjib- 
ject  is  all  we  recognize.  We  admit  no  substance  behind  th 
subject  and  outside  of  knowledge.  The  ego  which  thinks, 
feels,  and  acts  is  all  there  is  to  know;  and  for  us  the  fact 
that  the  ego  knows  itself  as  the  subject  of  its  acts,  and  as 
one  in  the  unity  of  its  consciousness,  together  with  the  fur- 
ther fact  that  this  unity  appears  on  reflection  as  the  absolute 
postulate  of  the  mental  life,  is  the  highest  possible  proof  of 
its  unity  and  reality.  We  must  repeat  the  conclusion  reached 
in  our  ontological  studies,  that  a  thing  is  to  be  viewed  as  real 
and  substantial  not  because  it  has  a  kernel  of  substance  in 
itself,  but  because  it  is  able  to  assert  itself  in  activity. 
Things  do  not  have  being  or  substance,  but  they  act,  and  by 
virtue  of  this  activity  they  acquire  the  right  to  be  consid- 
ered as  existing.  In  like  manner  the  soul  has  no  being  in 
it ;  but  it  knows  itself  as  active  and  as  acted  upon ;  and  in 
this  fact  and  knowledge  it  has  the  only  possible  mark  of 
reality. 

The  impossibility  of  accounting  for  the  capital  facts  of 
the  mental  life  without  a  unitary  subject  is  palpable.  No 
interaction  of  elements,  however  mysterious  or  subtle  they 
may  be,  can  produce  our  mental  life.  The  uncritical  imag- 
ination is,  of  course,  much  impressed  by  the  excessive  fine- 
ness of  the  elements,  and  by  the  darkness  which  surrounds 
brain-physiology;  and  this  darkness  and  mystery  pass  for 
argument.  Why  the  fact  that  we  know  little  about  the 
brain  should  lead  us  to  conclude  that  it  must  be  able  to  ex- 


376  METAPHYSICS. 

plain  thought,  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  materialistic  logic. 
But  the  question  as  to  the  reality  of  the  soul  does  not  depend 
on  brain -physiology  at  all.  The  question  turns  on  the  nat- 
ure of  consciousness  and  on  the  impossibility  of  producing 
the  one  from  the  many  and  the  identical  from  the  numeri- 
cally changing.  So  long  as  these  ideas  are  hostile  and  mut- 
ually exclusive,  so  long  will  materialism  be  impossible  as  a 
rational  theory.  As  a  volition,  of  course,  any  superstition 
or  absurdity  is  possible. 

We  have  before  said  that  monism  may  take  another  form, 
in  which  mentality  and  materiality  appear  as  opposite  sides 
or  faces  of  the  same  being.  This  is  pure  monism,  while  the 
theory  we  have  been  considering  is  rather  all-alikeism.  "We 
have  next  to  consider  the  relations  of  this  view  to  the  sub- 
stantiality of  the  soul.  We  shall  find  the  same  difficulties 
reappearing. 

Spinoza's  system  is  perhaps  the  purest  specimen  of  mon- 
ism of  this  type.  In  the  Eleatic  school  the  debate  was  en- 
tirely about  being ;  and  the  relation  of  thought  to  being  was 
overlooked.  Hence  the  Eleatic  monism,  though  perfectly 
pure,  obtained  this  purity  only  by  ignoring  the  side  of 
thought  altogether.  In  Spinoza's  system  we  have  an  at- 
tempt to  found  materiality  and  mentality  in  the  same  sub- 
ject and  as  equally  original  principles. 

Spinoza  starts  with  the  conception  of  an  infinite  substance 
with  an  infinity  of  attributes,  of  which  thought  and  exten- 
sion are  only  two.  In  the  progress  of  his  system,  however, 
the  infinity  of  attributes  is  dropped,  and  attention  is  direct- 
ed entirely  to  thought  and  extension.  This  was  partly  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  other  attributes  are  unknown  and  feigned 
quantities,  and,  as  such,  are  empty  of  any  affirmation.  It 
was,  perhaps,  also  due  to  the  insight  that,  in  any  case,  the 
thought-attribute  must  necessarily  constitute  one  half  of  the 
whole.  All  those  attributes  which  cannot  be  represented  in 
thought  are  beyond  all  knowledge  and  affirmation.  Hence 


THE  SOUL.  *    377 

every  real  attribute  must  also  have  its  ideal  side ;  that  is,  it 
must  fall  under  the  thought-attribute.  Even  extension  it- 
self, though  the  antithesis  of  thought,  must  still  have  a  re- 
lation to  thought,  or  it  could  not  be  represented  in  thought. 
Hence,  as  the  thought-attribute  must  always  be  half  of  real- 
ity, it  was  desirable  that  the  attribute  of  existence  should 
comprise  the  other  half.  And  thus  it  came  to  pass  that, 
finally,  Spinoza  seems  to  consider  thought  and  extension  as 
comprising  all  reality. 

But,  in  this  monistic  theory,  thought  and  extension  do  not 
explain  each  other,  but  are  posited  side  by  side  in  the  same 
subject.  The  physical  world,  in  itself,  neither  explains  nor 
implies  the  thought-world,  but  both  are  the  opposite  faces 
of  the  same  being.  This  admission  leads  to  some  peculiar 
difficulties.  In  the  theory  which  seeks  to  deduce  thought 
from  matter  and  motion,  the  great  difficulty  is  to  see  how 
moving  atoms  can  produce  thought,  or  do  anything  but 
move.  "We  have  abandoned  this  theory  for  another,  which 
posits  life  and  thought  in  matter,  to  be  evoked  under  the 
proper  circumstances.  But,  as  the  facts  of  perception  de- 
mand a  parallelism  of  the  order  of  thought  with  the  order 
of  things,  our  new  theory  is  called  upon  to  explain  this  har- 
mony. According  to  Spinoza,  the  movement  of  thought  is 
determined  only  by  antecedent  thoughts,  and  the  movement 
of  things  is  determined  only  by  antecedent  physical  move- 
ments. Thus  the  thought-series  and  thing-series  appear  in 
absolute  independence  of  each  other,  and,  to  save  the  reality 
of  knowledge,  we  are  thrown  back  on  the  assumption  of  an 
utterly  opaque  harmony  between  two  independent  series. 
Neither  would  contain  any  ground  for  the  existence  of  the 
other.  But,  in  that  case,  it  would  go  very  hard  with  the 
unity  of  the  substance.  We  have  two  series  of  manifesta- 
tion going  on  in  mutual  independence  and  indifference. 
Indeed,  Spinoza's  conception  of  the  relation  of  attributes  to 
the  substance  is  quite  incompatible  with  the  unity  of  the 
substance.  Descartes  viewed  the  attribute  as  expressing 


378  METAPHYSICS. 

the  essence,  and  hence  he  regarded  it  as  a  contradiction 
when  incommensurable  attributes  are  affirmed  of  the  same 
thing.  Spinoza,  however,  with  the  same  conception  of  the 
attribute,  still  sought  to  secure  unity  by  making  the  sub- 
stance one.  But  this  monism  is  only  in  seeming.  By  an 
act  of  philosophic  violence  we  have  forced  incommensura- 
ble attributes  together,  and  have  resolved  to  call  them  one. 
But  the  dualism  remains  deep  and  ineradicable. 

Spinoza  was  not  unconscious  of  this  difficulty,  and  at 
times  inclined  to  the  doctrine  that  the  attributes  are  only 
our  way  of  looking  at  things.  The  differences  are  not  in 
the  thing,  but  in  the  conception.  Hence  the  same  series 
viewed  from  one  side  appears  as  physical,  while  on  the  oth- 
er side  it  appears  as  mental.  In  this  case,  there  would  be 
only  one  series,  and  hence  no  parallelism  to  explain.  In 
this  doctrine  we  have  a  glimpse  of  Kant's  theory.  Indeed, 
traces  of  Kant's  theory  appear  throughout  speculation.  The 
glory  of  Kant  is  by  no  means  that  he,  first  of  all  men,  con- 
ceived that  thought  might  modify  its  objects,  but  that  he 
first  made  it  a  definite  principle,  and  consistently  and  sys- 
tematically applied  it. 

But  Spinoza's  attempt  to  escape  the  difficulty  is  a  failure. 
If  being  in  itself  be  strictly  one,  why  should  there  be  two 
ways  of  looking  at  it?  On  his  theory,  the  double  view  is 
as  hard  to  explain  as  the  double  fact ;  and,  indeed,  it  cannot 
be  explained  without  implicitly  assuming  a  corresponding 
doubleness  in  the  fact.  But  this  is  not  the  chief  difficulty. 
The  view  itself  is  unclear.  Taken  in  earnest,  it  implies  that 
thought  and  extension  do  not  correspond  nor  attend  each  oth- 
er, but  that  each  is  the  other.  And  not  even  this  would  be 
true,  for  both  thought  and  extension  would  have  only  a  sub- 
jective existence.  The  objective  fact  would  have  no  attri- 
butes; it  would  only  be  that  transcendant  unity  which  ap- 
pears to  us  under  the  forms  of  thought  and  extension.  But 
this  would  be  a  complete  abandonment  of  his  starting-point, 
and  Spinoza  never  pushed  his  subjectivity  of  thought  to 


THE  SOUL.  379 

this  extreme.  Such  a  view,  also,  would  rescue  the  mind 
from  a  position  of  passivity,  and  exhibit  it  as  a  transform- 
ing agent,  which  gives  to  being  its  essential  properties.  No 
doctrine  of  relativity  is  compatible  with  the  passivity  of  the 
knowing  mind.  There  is,  then,  a  thought-series,  and  there 
is  a  thing-series,  and  their  parallelism  remains  for  explana- 
tion. If,  now,  we  allow  that  they  are  opposite  faces  of  the 
same  fact,  we  are  met  by  the  difficulty  that  the  physical 
movements  are  said  to  be  physically  determined,  and  the 
thought  -  movements  are  said  to  be  logically  determined. 
But  the  laws  of  motion  and  impact  are  quite  distinct  from 
the  laws  of  thought;  yet,  on  the  theory  of  the  opposite 
faces,  they  must  be  identified,  or  one  must  be  abandoned. 
If  physical  laws  really  determine  physical  movements,  then 
the  thought  which  accompanies  them  is  really  determined 
by  physical  laws  also.  Conversely,  if  the  movements  of 
thought  are  determined  by  the  laws  of  thought,  or  the  inner 
order  of  reason,  then  the  physical  movements  which  accom- 
pany it  are  really  determined  by  reason,  and  the  physical 
determination  is  only  in  appearance.  To  make  thought  de- 
termined by  physical  laws  and  movements  would  lead  at 
once  to  the  overthrow  of  reason,  as  we  shall  see.  On  the 
other  hand,  to  make  thought  the  independent  series,  and 
physical  movements  only  its  phenomenal  attendant,  would 
be  to  leave  our  starting-point,  which  made  the  physical  and 
mental  series  co-ordinate  and  parallel.  The  only  alternative 
is,  to  say  that  physical  movements  are  not  physically  deter- 
mined, and  that  thought-movements  are  not  rationally  de- 
termined, but  that  both  thought  and  extension  are  the  phe- 
nomena of  some  transcendent  being,  and  are  determined 
by  some  ineffable  processes  in  that  being,  which  processes, 
moreover,  are  in  inexplicable  harmony.  But,  even  then, 
we  are  not  in  peace.  The  notion  of  phenomena  implies  a 
conscious  mind  as  the  condition  of  phenomena.  Hence  we 
cannot  make  mentality  and  materiality  phenomenal  without 
positing  a  conscious  subject  for  whom  the  phenomena  exist. 


380  METAPHYSICS. 

The  notion  of  a  harmony  or  correspondence  between  the 
two  series  has  the  same  implications.  A  harmony  between 
things  can  exist  only  for  a  subject  which  embraces  both  the 
harmonious  members.  In  order,  then,  that  this  harmony 
should  be  spoken  of,  there  must  be  a  subject  which  tran- 
scends both  series,  and  by  transcending  unites  them.  As 
long  as  the  thought-series  is  separated  from  the  thing-series, 
it  is  impossible  to  bring  them  together,  except  in  a  con- 
sciousness which  embraces  both.  Throughout  this  entire 
speculation  we  miss  the  conscious  subject  for  whom  thoughts 
and  things  and  their  harmony  exist. 

Indeed,  the  entire  monistic  speculation,  in  whatever  form 
it  appears,  is  the  victim  of  a  curious  self-forgetfulness.  The 
monist  speaks  incessantly  of  thought  as  a  phenomenon  of 
matter,  and  overlooks  the  fact  that  there  must  be  a  con- 
scious subject  before  phenomena  can  exist.  Most  of  his 
doctrines  imply  the  existence  of  mind  to  make  them  intel- 
ligible. The  common  form  of  stating  the  materialistic  doc- 
trine— namely,  that  mind  is  phenomenal — is  a  pure  contra- 
diction in  psychology,  because  mind  is  never  a  phenomenon, 
but  the  necessary  condition  of  phenomena.  And,  through 
oversight  of  this  fact,  the  mouist  always  seeks  to  find  thought 
and  consciousness  among  their  objects,  where,  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  they  can  never  be.  And,  because  they  never 
appear  among  the  objects,  the  monist  concludes  that  they 
are  non-existent.  But  mind,  as  the  knowing  subject,  can 
never  be  found  among  its  external  objects.  In  this  respect, 
it  is  like  vision,  which  gives  us  all  objects,  but  never  gives 
us  itself.  And  the  monist  who  concludes  to  its  non-exist- 
ence is  like  a  physiologist  who  should  so  lose  himself  among 
the  objects  of  vision  as  to  forget,  or  even  deny,  that  there 
must  be  an  eye  in  order  to  vision.  The  mind  is  the  eye, 
which  sees,  and,  of  course,  cannot  be  found  among  the 
things  seen.  But  this  the  monist  incessantly  forgets,  and,  af- 
ter he  has  looked  through  the  list  of  objects  which  the  mind 
has  given  him  without  finding  the  knower  among  them, 


THE   SOUL.  381 

he  forthwith  proceeds  to  deny  the  knower.  If,  in  addition, 
he  has  looked  carefully  through  the  brain,  and  caught  no 
glimpse  of  the  mind,  he  becomes  fixed  in  his  denial.  Thus 
the  order  of  fact  is  inverted.  The  real  is  made  phenome- 
nal, and  the  phenomenal  is  viewed  as  real.  Of  all  the  ex- 
traordinary delusions  which  have  ever  possessed  the  human 
mind,  this  is  the  most  extraordinary.  Overlooking  the  nec- 
essarily antithetical  nature  of  subject  and  object,  the  subject 
looks  for  himself  among  the  objects,  and,  confounded  by 
the  failure  to  find  anything,  overlooks  and  denies  himself 
entirely.  The  knowing  self — which  is  the  primal  reality  in 
knowledge,  and  the  only  reality  of  which  we  have  proper 
consciousness — is  denied,  because  it  will  not  consent  to  be- 
come a  phenomenon,  although,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  it 
never  can  do  so.  The  same  oversight  underlies  Spinoza's 
attempt  to  construe  the  thought-series  and  the  thing-series. 
Thoughts  are  viewed  as  things,  and  the  construing  and  com- 
paring process,  which  is  the  very  heart  of  the  matter,  is  to- 
tally overlooked. 

Spinoza's  monism  makes  thought  coexistent  with  exten- 
sion. Modern  monists,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  not  in- 
clined to  go  to  this  length.  They  hold  that  the  world-sub- 
stance, while  it  appears  everywhere  and  always  as  extended 
and  material,  does  not  appear  everywhere  and  always  as 
mind.  The  physical  series  is  regarded  as  the  original  and 
independent  fact,  and  the  mental  series  is  conceived  as  en- 
tirely dependent  upon  it.  To  be  sure,  the  mental  series  is 
spoken  of  as  an  inner  face  of  the  physical  series,  but  the 
ground  of  movement  is  in  the  latter.  It  summons  the  men- 
tal series,  and  determines  its  order  and  on-going.  To  such 
an  extent  is  this  the  case,  that  many  expositions  of  the  doc- 
trine fall  back  into  common  materialism,  and  seek  to  deduce 
the  mental  series  from  the  physical  series.  Sometimes  by 
the  aid  of  an  inflated  terminology,  and  sometimes  by  math- 
ematical formulas  and  diagrams,  it  is  sought  to  show  how, 
in  the  crossing  of  force-currents,  consciousness  must  arise. 


382  METAPHYSICS. 

Many  profound  things  are  said  to  show  how,  in  the  inces- 
sant weaving  and  unweaving  of  persistent  force,  thought 
and  feeling  must  be  produced.  The  latent  mentality  of  all 
being  must  be  integrated  in  the  concentration  of  force,  and, 
by  integration,  must  acquire  intensity  sufficient  to  rise  into 
distinct  consciousness.  But  neither  this,  nor  the  Spinozistic 
form  of  monism,  succeeds  any  better  in  explaining  my  own 
thought  and  the  unity  of  the  ego  than  did  the  atomic  forms. 
If  the  infinite  has  thoughts  and  feelings,  they  belong  to  the 
infinite,  and  not  to  me,  and  are,  therefore,  no  explanation 
of  my  thoughts  and  feelings.  The  notion  of  a  universal 
thought  -  existence,  out  of  which  particular  thoughts  are 
made,  as  various  garments  are  cut  from  the  same  piece  of 
cloth,  is  an  untenable  fancy,  and  one  which  no  rational  be- 
ing would  hold  upon  reflection.  Thought  itself  is  an  ab- 
straction ;  the  reality  is,  always,  particular  thoughts.  The 
notion  of  an  indefinite  thought-stuff,  which  admits  of  inte- 
gration, implicitly  assumes  the  materiality  of  thought,  and 
results  from  the  fancy  that  thoughts  may  be  found  among 
external  objects.  But  thoughts  are  acts,  and  not  stuff  or 
material.  As  such,  they  must  have  a  subject.  My  thoughts 
demand  a  subject,  and  that  subject  is  myself.  Whatever 
movements  there  may  be  in  the  world-substance,  and  what- 
ever currents  and  eddies,  etc.,  there  may  be,  I  know  myself, 
as  a  thinker  and  an  agent.  As  such  subject  or  agent,  I  am 
substance,  in  the  only  intelligible  sense  of  that  word.  It 
should  further  be  added,  that  this  notion  of  currents  and  ed- 
dies and  expansions  and  contractions  in  the  world-substance 
are  all  products  of  the  imagination,  and  are  without  any 
significance  for  thought.  They  are  only  attempts  to  pict- 
ure what,  on  any  theory,  must  be  essentially  unpicturable. 

The  conclusion  is,  that  the  soul  cannot  be  viewed  as  the 
result  of  any  amount  or  kind  of  combination.  As  a  unitary 
agent  it  cannot  be  compounded  but  must  be  created ;  that 
is,  it  must  be  viewed  as  a  new  factor  introduced  into  the  sys- 
tem by  the  infinite.  And  even  the  monist  should  find  no 


THE  SOUL.  383 

fault  with  this  view.  It  can  be  obnoxious  only  to  the  crude 
materialist,  who  regards  the  physical  elements  as  the  primal 
and  basal  reality ;  and  this  view  we  have  seen  to  be  unten- 
able. We  have  pointed  out,  in  speaking  of  the  relation  of 
the  infinite  to  the  system,  that  the  order  of  the  system  is  no 
matter  for  apriori  speculation.  We  pointed  out  that,  if  we 
view  the  physical  elements  as  evolved  from  the  infinite,  it 
is  infinitely  improbable  that  they  should  all  have  been 
evolved  at  once.  They  must  be  viewed  as  having  the 
ground  of  their  appearance  and  of  the  order  of  their  ap- 
pearance in  the  peculiar  demands  of  the  infinite  itself. 
There  is,  then,  not  the  slightest  reason  for  affirming  that  the 
number  of  the  elements  is  invariable.  What,  then,  the  evo- 
lutionist must  admit  as  possible  for  the  physical  elements, 
cannot  be  viewed  as  inadmissible  for  psychical  elements,  if 
the  facts  seem  to  call  for  it.  The  Infinite  is  in  immediate 
contact  with  the  system.  He  is  its  basal  factor.  What  his 
nature  or  plan  calls  for,  that  is  done.  If  it  call  for  the  ap- 
pearance of  new  factors,  they  appear.  If  it  call  for  the 
disappearance  of  old  factors,  they  disappear.  This,  we  say, 
is  a  necessity  of  every  system.  The  attempt  to  construe  a 
system  out  of  independent  self-existent  atoms  we  have  seen 
to  be  a  hopeless  failure.  The  basal  one  must  be  admitted, 
and  it  must  be  admitted  to  be  the  source  of  all  law,  manifes- 
tation, and  on-going.  Hence,  in  any  system  the  nature  of 
the  infinite  appears  as  the  all-determining  factor.  But  that 
which  is  to  be  viewed  as  an  assumption,  which  every  system 
must  make,  cannot  be  regarded  as  peculiarly  obnoxious  in 
ours.  We  have  found  ourselves  forced  to  view  the  infinite 
as  free  and  intelligent,  and  his  causality  we  have  regarded 
as  the  causality  of  will.  His  activity,  therefore,  is  purpose- 
ful; and  its  direction  is  determined  by  his  plan.  And  as 
we  find  factors  in  the  system,  which  we  can  view  only  as 
new  beginnings,  we  look  upon  that  plan  as  including  the 
introduction  of  new  factors  upon  occasion.  The  only  dif- 
ference between  our  view  and  any  possible  monistic  doc- 


381  METAPHYSICS. 

trine  is,  that  while  the  latter  would  view  the  new  factors  as 
the~  outcome  of  a  blind  necessity,  we  regard  them  as  the 
outcome  of  purpose. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  possibility  of  explaining 
the  mental  life  without  the  assumption  of  a  unitary  and 
substantial  soul  as  the  subject  of  that  life ;  and  we  have 
found  that  all  forms  of  materialism  and  monism  are  hope- 
lessly incompetent  to  explain  the  most  patent  facts  of  our 
mental  experience.  "We  might,  then,  dismiss  them  as  un- 
tenable without  further  inquiry.  But  a  theory  may  be 
tested  in  two  ways :  we  may  treat  it  as  an  hypothesis  to  be 
proved ;  and  then  we  compare  it  with  the  facts  and  see  if 
they  call  for  it.  Or  we  may  assume  it  to  be  true,  and  de- 
duce its  consequences,  and  compare  them  with  known  facts. 
Having  applied  the  first  test,  we  shall  find  it  of  advantage 
to  apply  the  second.  We  have,  then,  to  consider  some  of 
the  outcomes  of  materialistic  monism,  and  especially  its 
bearing  upon  the  validity  of  knowledge  itself.  It  is  mani- 
fest that  a  theory  which  leads  to  the  overthrow  of  knowl- 
edge commits  suicide,  and  can  lay  no  claim  to  acceptance. 

We  have  previously  pointed  out  that  the  materialistic 
doctrine  of  the  relation  of  the  thought-series  to  the  physical 
series  is  essentially  unclear.  The  materialist  cannot  allow 
the  mental  series  to  be  independent  of  the  physical  series ; 
for  this  would  be  to  abandon  his  monism  and  surrender  his 
own  theory.  Ko  more  can  he  allow  the  mind  to  be  a  real 
and  active  something ;  for  this  also  is  contrary  to  the  hy- 
pothesis. In  some  way  the  mental  series  must  be  made  to 
depend  on  the  physical  series;  and  this  can  be  done  only 
by  teaching  the  materiality  of  thought,  or  by  making 
thought  a  powerless  attendant  upon  the  plr^sical  series. 
The  latter  course  is  the  one  generally  adopted.  The  physical 
series  is  viewed  as  going  on  by  itself,  and  as  subject  only 
to  the  laws  of  force  and  motion ;  and  the  mental  series  is 
simply  the  subjective  shadow  which  the  physical  series 


THE  SOUL.  385 

casts.  As  such  they  contribute  nothing  and  subtract  noth- 
ing. A  shadow  effects  nothing;  and,  in  turn,  no  energy  is 
expended  in  making  it.  The  physical  series  is  not  affected 
from  without,  and  nothing  is  drawn  off  from  it  to  make 
thoughts  and  feelings.  Hence,  the  presence  and  movement 
of  the  mental  series  is  determined  by  the  physical  series, 
just  as  the  presence,  form,  and  movement  of  a  shadow  are 
determined  by  the  body  which  casts  it.  The  existence  of 
any  thought  or  feeling  is  due  to  the  general  form  of  nervous 
action.  The  existence  of  this  or  that  particular  thought  or 
feeling  is  due  to  specific  peculiarities  of  nervous  action 
within  the  limits  prescribed  by  the  general  form.  This  in- 
dependence of  the  physical  series  Prof.  Clifford  has  very 
pithily  expressed  by  declaring  that  it  "goes  along  by  itself." 
The  powerlessness  of  the  mental  series  has  been  sharply 
stated  by  Prof.  Huxley  in  his  lecture  "  On  the  Hypothesis 
that  Animals  are  Automata,"  where  he  says  that  he  knows 
of  no  reason  for  believing  that  any  mental  state  can  affect 
any  physical  state,  and  adds,  It  follows  "  that,  to  take  an  ex- 
treme illustration,  the  feeling  we  call  volition  is  not  the 
cause  of  a  voluntary  act,  but  the  symbol  of  that  state  of  the 
brain  which  is  the  immediate  cause  of  that  act."  The  gen- 
eral view  has  been  wrought  out  at  great  length  by  Mr. 
Spencer  in  his  "Principles  of  Psychology,"  where,  along 
with  many  bewildering  remarks  about  opposite  faces  of  the 
unknowable,  he  represents  the  mental  face  as  completely  de- 
termined by  the  physical  face,  so  that  memory,  reflection, 
reasoning,  and  consciousness  in  general  are  only  the  sub- 
jective shadows  of  molecular  changes  in  the  brain,  or  of 
what  he  calls  nascent  motor  excitations.  Mental  movement  of 
every  sort  is  due,  not  to  any  self-determination  of  reason,  but 
to  the  nervous  mechanism  ;  and  this,  in  turn,  is  subject  only 
to  the  laws  of  molecular  mechanics.  The  coexistence  of  ideas 
means  the  coexistence  of  the  appropriate  nervous  states. 
The  comparison  of  ideas  means  the  interaction  of  these 
states.  A  conclusion,  or  a  choice,  means  that  one  nervous 
25 


386  METAPHYSICS. 

set  has  displaced  another  nervous  set.  The  processes  of 
logic  represent  no  fixed  and  necessary  order  of  reason,  but 
only  the  subjective  side  of  a  conflict  among  nervous  states. 
A  conclusion  actually  reached,  or  a  view  actually  held,  rep- 
resents no  fixed  truth,  but  only  the  superior  strength  of  the 
corresponding  nervous  combination.  Truth  in  any  case  is 
only  a  nervous  resultant,  and  depends  upon  the  nerves. 
There  is,  indeed,  much  that  is  absurd  in  this  view ;  but  it  is 
the  current  view  among  materialists.  We  have  to  inquire 
into  its  theory  of  knowledge.  The  investigation  will  aid  us 
in  judging  the  doctrine. 

We  point  out  in  the  first  place  that  we  reach  the  thing- 
series  only  through  the  thought-series.  We  know  that  there 
are  things  and  what  they  are  only  through  thought.  Hence, 
while  the  thing-series  may  be  first  and  fundamental  in  the 
order  of  fact,  in  the  order  of  knowledge  the  thought-series 
is  first.  A  first  question,  then,  would  be,  What  warrant  is 
there  for  affirming  any  thing-series?  Why  may  not  the 
thing-series  be  after  all  only  a  phase  of  the  thought-series  2 
From  Hume  to  Spencer,  the  thing-series  has  been  defined 
as  a  series  of  vivid  states  of  consciousness,  while  the  ego  is 
a  series  of  faint  states  of  consciousness.  But,  vivid  or  faint, 
this  definition  makes  both  subject  and  object  states  of  con- 
sciousness ;  and,  hence,  both  belong  to  the  thought-series. 
The  ego,  as  a  series  of  states  of  consciousness,  can  lead  to 
nothing  beyond  itself;  and  the  object,  as  a  series  of  con- 
scious states,  exists  only  in  thought.  Here  is  the  placo 
where  materialism  always  tumbles  into  nihilistic  idealism 
whenever  it  attempts  to  reason  out  a  theory  of  perception. 
It  is  well  known  that  Spencer,  at  this  point,  when  his  theory 
was  about  to  collapse  into  nihilism,  saved  himself  by  rein- 
stating the  ego  as  a  true  agent.  In  his  argument  with  the 
idealist  the  ego  acquires  a  new  character.  It  is  no  longer 
a  series  of  faint  impressions,  or  the  inner  side  of  nerve-mo- 
tions, but  a  true  source  of  energy;  and  the  warrant  for 
affirming  a  thing  -  series,  apart  from  the  thought  -  series,  is 


THE  SOUL.  387 

found  in  the  fact  that  our  energy  is  resisted  by  an  energy 
not  our  own.  This  is  excellent  doctrine,  but  it  does  not 
agree  with  the  other  doctrine,  that  the  ego  is  only  the  sum 
of  mental  states,  and  that  mental  states  affect  no  physical 
states;  for  it  makes  our  own  consciousness  of  effort  and 
energy  the  turning-point  of  the  entire  debate  between  the 
nihilist  and  the  realist.  It  saves  realism  by  surrendering 
materialism ;  and  nihilism  can  be  escaped  in  no  other  way. 
We  pass  to  another  point.  All  arguments  for  the  suffi- 
ciency of  matter  assume  a  valid  knowledge  of  matter.  That 
X  is  adequate  or  inadequate  is  a  proposition  which  admits 
of  no  discussion.  It  is,  then,  a  matter  of  interest  to  know 
what  warrant  there  is  for  affirming  that  the  thought-series 
rightly  represents  the  thing-series.  The  general  fact  that 
the  latter  determines  the  former  in  no  way  implies  that  the 
latter  must  determine  the  former  so  as  to  correspond  with 
itself.  If  an  organism  be  able  to  generate  thoughts,  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  the  thoughts  must  represent  external 
reality.  The  thoughts  might  be  as  subjective  as  the  fancies 
produced  in  dreams.  One  would  expect  that  the  thoughts 
would  represent,  if  anything,  the  organic  processes  of  which 
they  are  said  to  be  the  inner  face ;  whereas  they  never  refer 
to  these,  and  commonly  refer  to  things  entirely  apart  from 
the  organism.  Nervous  combinations  and  movements  are 
said  to  have  ideas  for  their  mental  face ;  and  the  natural 
thought  would  be  that  those  ideas  would  be  ideas  of  their 
peculiar  nervous  correlates.  But  this  is  never  the  case;  in- 
deed, that  there  are  such  correlates  is  even  now  a  matter  of 
not  very  cogent  inference.  This  complete  silence  of  the 
organism  as  to  what  is  going  on  in  itself,  and  the  report  in- 
stead of  what  is  taking  place  in  the  outer  world,  are  very 
remarkable  facts.  Certainly,  when  matter  is  declared  to  be 
a  double-faced  entity,  we  should  expect  to  find  the  mental 
face  reflecting  that  part  of  the  physical  face  which  attends 
it,  or  which  is  next  to  it ;  but  the  mental  face  never  reflects 
the  physical  series  which  produces  it,  but  some  other  and 


388  METAPHYSICS. 

unconnected  series.  Thus  a  set  of  rays  of  light  fall  upon 
the  body  and  a  thought  results,  but  not  a  thought  of  the 
nerve-processes,  or  molecular  motions  which  produce  tho 
thought,  but  a  thought  of  some  external  luminous  object. 
It  is  strange,  indeed,  that  anything  should  result,  but  that 
the  thought  should  be  a  reproduction  of  the  object  is  sur- 
prising in  a  far  higher  degree.  The  wonder  is  still  greater 
in  our  perception  of  others'  thoughts.  Here  some  waves  of 
air  fall  upon  the  ear,  and  at  once  the  nerves  produce 
thoughts  with  the  added  assurance  that  they  are  the  repro- 
duction of  a  thought-series  which  exists  apart  from  our  own. 
We  can  now  understand  the  problem.  If  knowledge  is  to 
be  possible,  the  mental  series  must  rightly  represent  the 
physical  series  and  all  other  mental  series;  but  what  ground 
is  there  for  affirming  that  they  must  correspond  ?  This  par- 
ticular problem  has  not  received  the  attention  from  materi- 
alists which  it  deserves.  In  general,  they  have  never  con- 
sidered the  problem  of  knowledge  at  all,  but  have  taken  the 
crude  theory  of  common-sense  for  granted.  But  the  prob- 
lem is  a  real  one,  and  demands  a  solution.  And  for  the 
materialist  there  is  no  solution  possible,  except  some  debased 
form  of  the  pre-established  harmony.  He  must  assume 
not  only  that  matter  in  general  is  capable  of  generating 
thoughts,  but  that  it  is  shut  up  by  its  nature  to  the  genera- 
tion of  thoughts  which  correspond  to  the  outward  fact.  He 
must  even  assume  that  bodies  are  so  related  to  the  universe 
as  to  be  under  obligation  to  generate  correct  thoughts  about 
things  in  general.  Many  have  sought  to  escape  this  con- 
clusion by  appealing  to  agnosticism ;  but  materialism  will 
not  unite  with  this  view  except  as  a  dogmatic  affirma- 
tion. The  entire  proof  of  materialism  rests  on  the  assump- 
tion that  we  have  a  valid  knowledge  of  matter.  The 
thought-series,  then,  must  correspond  to  things ;  but  why  ? 
The  only  answer  is  that  matter  is  such  that  it  must  produce 
true  thoughts ;  but  this  is  simply  to  reaffirm  the  fact.  This 
theory  is  far  worse  than  Leibnitz's  pre-established  harmony. 


THE  SOUL.  389 

Leibnitz  found  some  reason  for  the  harmony  in  the  fact  of 
its  pre-establislmieut ;  but  the  materialist  has  simply  to  as- 
sert it  as  an  opaque  fact. 

Still  the  problem  has  not  been  entirely  unnoticed.  Nota- 
bly Mr.  Spencer  has  sought  to  account  for  the  harmony  in 
question  by  a  theory  framed  from  natural  selection  and 
heredity.  According  to  this  view,  there  is  no  original  need 
that  matter  should  think  rightly  ;  but  if  any  organism  should 
think  wrongly,  it  would  soon  collide  with  reality  and  perish. 
Right  thinking,  therefore,  is  necessary  to  continued  exist- 
ence. Natural  selection  must  tend  to  pick  out  the  sound 
thinkers  from  the  unsound ;  and  by  heredity  their  tenden- 
cies will  be  integrated  and  transmitted.  The  final  result 
will  be  that  thought  will  at  last  be  adjusted  to  things,  yet 
without  any  reference  to  an  opaque  and  uncaused  harmony. 

The  ingenuity  of  this  view  is  wonderful ;  still  more  so  is 
the  uncritical  faith  which  can  receive  it.  For  since  thought 
has  no  effect  on  physical  processes,  it  is  hard  to  see  what 
effect  for  good  or  evil  thought  can  have.  The  survival  of 
the  organism  is  a  purely  physical  matter,  with  which,  by 
hypothesis,  thought  has  nothing  to  do.  There  seems  to  be 
here  a  trace  of  the  antiquated  notion  of  self-control,  accord- 
ing to  which  our  knowledge  determines  our  course.  In  a 
system  of  freedom  the  theory  would  have  application ;  but 
when  thought  is  only  the  powerless  shadow  of  reality,  its 
misadjustment  is  insignificant.  In  this  theory,  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  organism  is  not  due  to  a  maladjustment  of 
thought,  but  to  a  maladjustment  of  the  organism.  The 
organisms  which  perish  are  not  those  which  think  wrongly, 
but  those  which  cannot  maintain  their  equilibrium  with  the 
environment.  But  there  is  nothing  in  this  which  implies 
that  those  organisms  which  are  in  equilibrium  with  the  en- 
vironment must  produce  true  thoughts  of  the  environment. 
The  crystal  maintains  itself  against  its  surroundings  by  vir- 
tue of  its  physical  structure ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  if 
a  crystal  should  have  thoughts  they  must  reflect  the  sur- 


390  METAPHYSICS. 

roundings.  But  why  should  the  same  equilibrium  imply 
more  in  the  organism?  Why  must  organisms  which  can 
physically  maintain  themselves  think  rightly  about  their 
surroundings?  This  they  must  do  if  knowledge  is  to  hare 
any  validity ;  but  it  is  hard  to  find  any  reason  for  it.  We 
are  forced  either  to  abandon  knowledge  or  else  to  fall  back 
again  on  a  grotesque  harmony  between  organisms  and  their 
surroundings,  such  that  when  they  take  to  thinking  they 
can  but  reflect  their  environment.  But  this  is  Leibnitz's 
theory  of  pre-established  harmony  in  its  most  debased  form. 
Leibnitz  was  not  content  to  affirm  the  harmony  between 
mind  and  its  objects ;  he  explained  it  by  its  pre-establish- 
ment.  Materialism  degrades  it  to  a  physical  significance 
and  leaves  it  unaccountable. 

Again,  it  is  very  remarkable  that  the  narrow  range  of  the 
Spencerian  principle  should  have  been  overlooked.  If  it 
were  true,  it  would  provide  for  valid  thoughts  only  as  they 
are  related  to  survival;  whereas  the  bulk  of  our  thoughts 
have  no  bearing  on  survival.  A  mistake  in  our  theory  of 
double  stars  or  in  solar  physics  would  not  be  attended  with 
any  physical  disaster.  The  true  theory  and  the  false  theory 
are  equally  without  significance  for  survival.  And  since 
this  is  the  case  with  the  mass  of  our  alleged  knowledge,  the 
action  of  natural  selection  can  never  come  into  play  to  sep- 
arate the  true  from  the  false.  What  warrant,  then,  have 
we  for  trusting  the  report  of  thought  on  these  things  ?  The 
uninitiated  may  be  tempted  to  think  that  we  reach  these 
things  by  reasoning ;  but  on  this  theory,  reasoning  itself  is 
only  a  function  of  the  nerves.  It  is  but  the  subjective  side 
of  the  nervous  mechanism ;  and  there  is  no  assignable  rea- 
son why  the  nerves  should  reason  more  accurately  than  they 
perceive.  If  reasoning  were  an  independent  mental  activi- 
ty, self-poised  and  self-verifying,  the  case  would  be  differ- 
ent; but  the  mind  is  only  the  sum  of  mental  phenomena; 
and  these  phenomena  are  called  up  and  shifted  by  the  ner- 
vous mechanism.  Once  more,  then,  what  warrant  is  there 


THE  SOUL.  391 

for  trusting  our  nerves  ?  That  they  should  produce  thoughts 
about  everything  is  very  remarkable ;  but  that  these  thoughts 
should  represent  the  reality  is  in  the  highest  degree  sur- 
prising. The  mental  series,  which  originally  was  the  sub- 
jective face  of  sundry  nervous  movements,  turns  out  to  be 
the  inner  face  of  all  physical  series  or  movements  with  the 
one  amazing  exception  of  the  physical  series  on  which  it 
depends.  To  retain  our  trust  in  knowledge  we  must  make 
once  more  the  assumption  of  a  pre-established  harmony  in 
its  worst  form.  Who  would  have  expected  to  find  the 
ghost  of  Leibnitz,  in  a  somewhat  degraded  state,  lurking 
among  the  ponderous  phrases  of  the  Spencerian  philosophy. 
Another  difficulty  with  this  theory  of  knowledge  is  that 
its  appeal  to  heredity  and  experience  is  not  clearly  justified 
by  the  principles  of  the  theory.  It  is  well  known  that 
when  materialism  comes  to  psychology,  it  always  allies  it- 
self with  empiricism  and  associationalism.  Thus  Mr.  Spen- 
cer, when  he  had  conducted  the  evolution  of  the  universe 
up  to  the  borders  of  mind,  attached  the  associational  psy- 
chology to  his  system,  and  thus  mind  was  brought  into  line 
with  all  below  it.  He  also  apparently  greatly  increased  the 
resources  of  associationalism  by  his  doctrine  of  heredity, 
whereby  a  race-experience  was  exchanged  for  an  individual 
experience.  In  this  way,  the  system  gained  time  for  its  trans- 
formations. This  is  very  clear  in  appearance,  but  rather 
confused  in  fact.  For  in  order  to  learn  from  experience 
there  must  be  something  which  learns ;  whereas,  on  the  ma- 
terialistic theory,  the  learner  is  the  experience  itself.  We 
learn  from  experience  by  remembering  the  past,  and  de- 
ducing principles  for  present  and  future  guidance.  But 
this  is  impossible  where  there  is  no  rational  subject  which 
stands  apart  from  the  experience  and  draws  inferences  from 
it.  Is  ow,  according  to  materialism,  we  ^o  not  have  ideas ; 
we  are  the  ideas.  And  these  ideas  are  not  the  product  of 
some  past  experience,  but  are  the  outcome  of  the  organism 
as  it  is.  An  organism  made  at  first  hand  from  the  inorganic 


392  METAPHYSICS. 

would  have  precisely  the  same  ideas,  feelings,  and  recollec- 
tions. The  only  "way,  therefore,  in  which  experience  can 
affect  our  mental  life  is  by  modifying  the  organism ;  it  can 
directly  teach  us  nothing.  Nor  is  it  in  any  sense  our  men- 
tal experiences  which  modify  the  organism ;  these,  by  hy- 
pothesis, are  powerless.  And  the  mental  manifestations  of 
the  organism  are  in  no  sense  learned  from  experience,  but 
are  the  expression  of  what  the  organism  is.  We  may  speak 
of  a  gradual  development  of  the  organism  and  a  correspond- 
ing development  of  mental  manifestation ;  but  we  cannot 
speak  of  experience  in  the  philosophical  sense  of  the  word. 
The  same  considerations  apply  to  heredity  in  a  materialistic 
system.  Experience  cannot  be  inherited,  because  no  one 
has  it,  and  there  is  no  one  to  inherit  it.  We  are  the  expe- 
rience; and  the  experience  is  the  outcome  of  the  organism. 
The  experience  from  which  we  are  supposed  to  learn  is  of 
course  mental  experience,  and  this,  by  hypothesis,  never  re- 
acts on  the  organism.  From  another  standpoint,  also,  this 
alliance  between  empiricism  and  materialism  appears  as  im- 
possible. The  elements  from  which  the  materialist  builds 
everything  are  subject  to  fixed  laws.  In  all  their  inorganic 
manifestations  they  manifest,  not  their  habits,  but  their  in- 
ner nature.  Chemical  affinity  and  molecular  combination 
in  general  are  not  the  outcome  of  experience,  but  of  the 
nature  of  the  atoms  themselves.  We  should  expect,  then, 
if  the  elements  should  ever  rise  to  vital  and  mental  mani- 
festations, that  there  also  would  be  fixed  expressions  of 
what  the  elements  are ;  not  something  acquired  and  adven- 
titious, but  something  inherent  and  essential.  Indeed,  from 
this  standpoint  the  notions  of  heredity  and  experience  are 
grotesquely  untenable.  The  elements  have  laws,  not  habits ; 
and  they  neither  have  nor  inherit  experiences.  Their  com- 
binations also  must  be  of  the  same  sort;  and  if  it  be  absurd 
to  speak  of  the  complex  molecule  as  forming  habits  and 
learning  new  forms  of  action,  it  is  equally  absurd  to  speak 
of  organic  molecules  as  so  doing ;  for  organic  molecules  are 


THE  SOUL.  393 

simply  complex  molecules.  It  is,  then,  a  grave  inconsisten- 
cy when  materialism  is  joined  to  empiricism,  according  to 
which  mental  manifestation  has  no  fixed  and  necessary  laws, 
and  is  a  pure  product  of  experience.  According  to  mate- 
rialism, there  is  no  need  of  experience  for  any  depth  of 
insight  or  even  for  any  amount  of  memory.  All  that  is 
needed,  in  order  to  have  a  perfect  insight  into  both  present 
and  past,  is  that  the  appropriate  organism  be  produced. 
Materialism,  then,  is  compatible  only  with  a  high  form  of 
aprioristn ;  and  the  laws  of  mind  have  as  good  right  to  be 
viewed  as  essential  and  inviolable  as  the  laws  of  gravity  and 
chemical  affinity.  This  is  a  somewhat  bizarre  and  unex- 
pected result ;  but  it  must  be  admitted.  It  is  needless  to 
point  out  that  psychological  empiricism,  when  logical,  makes 
materialism  as  a  reasoned  system  impossible.  The  union 
of  the  two  must  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  philosophical 
adultery.  And  so  we  come  around  to  our  previous  conclu- 
sion, that  the  materialistic  theory  of  knowledge  is  that  of 
an  opaque  harmony  between  the  organism  and  the  sur- 
rounding world. 

We  see,  then,  that  natural  selection,  as  a  principle  of  be- 
lief, does  not  escape  the  admission  of  an  uncaused  harmony 
between  the  body  and  the  environment.  We  next  recur 
to  a  peculiar  difficult}7,  mentioned  in  the  beginning  of  the 
chapter,  which  arises  from  this  principle,  if  we  allow  it  to 
be  valid.  It  follows  directly  from  it  that  no  belief  can  be- 
come widespread  which  is  contrary  to  reality ;  for  malad- 
justed beliefs  must  lead  to  collision  with  the  nature  of 
things  and  consequent  destruction.  It  further  follows  that 
every  widespread  and  enduring  belief  must  correspond  to 
the  nature  of  things.  Certainly  those  beliefs  which  orig- 
inated in  the  earliest  times,  and  which  have  maintained 
themselves  ever  since,  must  be  viewed  as  having  far  higher 
probability  than  the  late  opinions  of  a  sect.  The  great 
catholic  convictions  of  the  race  represent  the  sifting  action 
of  the  universe  from  the  beginning.  They  are,  therefore, 


391  METAPHYSICS. 

the  only  ones  which,  on  the  theory,  can  lay  the  slightest 
claim  to  our  acceptance.  It  is,  then,  in  the  highest  degree 
inconsistent  when  the  disciples  of  this  view  reject  a  belief 
because  it  is  old  and  reaches  back  to  the  infancy  of  the 
race ;  for  this  is  the  very  characteristic  of  true  beliefs.  A 
belief  which  has  only  recently  appeared  can  hardly  lay  any 
claim  to  be  considered  at  all.  What,  then,  shall  we  do  with 
such  beliefs  as  the  belief  in  God,  freedom,  the  spirituality 
and  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  the  existence  of  a  moral 
government  in  the  universe?  Of  course,  as  materialists,  we 
cannot  accept  them ;  but  how  can  we  as  materialists  reject 
them?  The  same  brain  which  has  ground  out  the  truths 
of  materialism  has  also  ground  out  these  other  notions. 
That  they  are  not  fatally  maladjusted  to  the  nature  of 
things  is  proved  by  their  continued  existence ;  and,  by  hy- 
pothesis, they  are  products  of  that  natural  selection  whose 
especial  business  it  is  to  sift  the  true  from  the  false.  There 
is  nothing  to  do  but  to  attempt  a  distinction  between  mal- 
adjusted thoughts  which  lead  to  destruction  and  others 
which  do  not.  Our  thoughts  of  God  and  supersensible 
things  are  of  the  nature  of  dreams.  They  lie  outside  of 
any  possible  physical  experience,  and  hence  they  cannot 
collide  with  reality  any  more  than  could  a  ghost.  Unfort- 
unately, it  is  not  easy  to  draw  this  line  so  as  to  conserve 
those  physical  truths  which  lie  outside  of  any  possible  ex- 
perience, and  at  the  same  time  put  religious  and  other  ob- 
noxious ideas  to  flight.  It  is  a  very  grave  circumstance 
that  matter  should  be  so  given  to  dream  and  error.  Of 
course,  the  uninitiated  will  think  that  reasoning  will  serve 
our  purpose;  but  reasoning  itself  is  a  part  of  the  nerve- 
process. 

Throughout  the  past,  natural  selection  has  favored  anti- 
materialistic  views;  in  the  future  the  same  process  must 
eliminate  materialism.  It  is  plain  that  those  beliefs  which 
make  most  of  the  person  and  which  give  one  most  energy 
and  hope  must  in  the  long  run  have  an  advantage  over 


THE  SOUL.  395 

others  which  are  relatively  discouraging  and  depressing. 
Hence,  in  the  end,  beliefs  which  tend  to  righteousness  and 
cheerfulness  must  overcome  all  beliefs  which  tend  to  loose- 
ness and  despair.  The  former  will  tend  to  conserve  the 
physical  and  moral  health  both  of  the  person  and  of  so- 
ciety, and  the  latter  will  be  in  alliance  with  destruction. 
If  it  be  said  that  we  here  forget  our  previous  assumption 
that  a  mental  state  cannot  affect  a  physical  state,  we  reply 
that  that  assumption  is  not  our  own,  but  the  theorist's.  We 
do  not  assume  any  responsibility  for  any  of  these  views; 
we  inquire  merely  into  their  implications.  And  since  the 
theorist  has  introduced  natural  selection  as  a  determining 
principle  of  belief,  we  inquire  whither  it  will  carry  us. 
That  this  principle  does  not  agree  with  the  other  principle, 
that  the  physical  series  goes  along  by  itself,  is  not  our  affair. 
And  even  if  the  two  did  agree,  it  would  be  highly  unscien- 
tific to  hold  that  a  change  of  opinion  will  have  no  effect  on 
action.  As  opinion,  of  course  it  would  be  powerless,  but  as 
opinions  are  only  the  subjective  side  of  nervous  states,  it 
follows  that  a  change  of  opinion  points  to  a -change  in  the 
nervous  processes,  and  hence  it  must  lead  to  change  of  ac- 
tion. Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  belief  in  God,  immortal- 
ity, and  moral  government,  has  a  great  value  both  for  per- 
sonal and  social  well-being.  It  is  the  great  source  of  cour- 
age, hope,  cheerfulness,  and  steadfastness  in  righteousness. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  undoubted  that  materialism, 
atheism,  etc.,  are  relatively  depressing  and  demoralizing. 
The  rapid  spread  of  pessimism  among  the  more  earnest  of 
the  advanced  thinkers  is  sufficient  proof  of  this.  Hence, 
under  the  operation  of  natural  selection,  the  former  set  of 
beliefs  will  have  a  decided  advantage  over  the  latter,  and 
in  the  end  they  must  conquer.  That  matter  can  form  the 
conception  of  freedom,  the  soul,  and  God  we  know  by  the 
fact ;  hence,  they  are  plainly  not  repugnant  to  the  nature 
of  matter.  The  direction  which  its  future  thinking  must 
take  under  the  influence  of  natural  selection  is  plain.  Mat- 


396  METAPHYSICS. 

ter  must  come  at  last  to  a  firm  faith  in  the  soul,  immortality, 
and  God.  Of  course,  the  eager  objector,  carried  away  by 
his  nerves,  urges  that  believing  them  would  not  make  them 
true,  but  only  cherished  delusions.  It  is  odd  how  hard  it  is 
for  one  to  master  his  own  theory.  By  hypothesis  matter  is 
capable  of  valid  thinking ;  and  why  should  we  not  trust  it 
when  it  thinks  about  God  as  well  as  when  it  thinks  about 
the  world  ?  We  do  not  insist  that  it  is  equally  trustworthy ; 
we  only  ask  for  some  standard  whereby  one  set  of  thoughts 
can  be  ruled  out,  while  another  is  retained.  Of  course,  we 
are  beyond  the  point  where  we  fancied  that  reason  itself  is 
such  a  standard ;  for  reasoning  itself  is  a  part  of  the  nerve- 
process.  It  does  not  contain  any  standard  of  truth  in  itself, 
but  comes  and  goes  according  to  the  principles  of  nerve- 
mechanics. 

As  materialists,  then,  we  are  shut  up  to  the  doctrine  of  an 
opaque  harmony  between  thought  and  thing.  But  while 
this  doctrine  is  necessary  to  save  knowledge  from  one  dan- 
ger, it  exposes  it  to  another  equally  great.  In  speaking 
of  Leibnitz's  pre-established  harmony,  we  pointed  out  that 
on  that  theory  we  should  expect  the  most  exact  and  consist- 
ent knowledge,  while  in  fact  the  most  diverse  and  incon- 
sistent beliefs  are  held.  The  same  difficulty  meets  us  here. 
The  theory  calls  for  the  most  exact  and  consistent  knowl- 
edge ;  and  unfortunately  we  have  no  such  knowledge.  How, 
then,  are  we  to  decide  between  opposing  views?  The  most 
natural  assumption  would  be  that  those  views  are  most  likely 
to  be  true  which  matter  produces  most  freely ;  but,  sadly 
enough,  the  average  brain  is  not  so  made  as  to  grind  out 
materialism  and  atheism.  Matter  in  its  thinking  has  a 
strong  tendency  towards  theism,  morality,  and  the  spiritual 
conception  of  the  soul ;  and  it  has  even  devoted  much  atten- 
tion in  the  past  to  theology  and  metaphysics.  Of  course,  these 
views  are  false,  but  how  are  we  to  escape  them  ?  If  the  hu- 
man mind  were  something  which  is  capable  of  free  reflec- 
tion, and  which  develops  variously  according  to  its  cir- 


THE  SOUL.  397 

cumstances,  we  might  account  for  much  variation  by  the 
mental  environment ;  but,  of  course,  this  is  not  the  case.  It 
is  indifferent  to  a  molecule  where  it  is,  and  it  ought  to  be 
indifferent  to  any  complex  of  molecules.  In  particular,  it 
is  hard  to  see  how  the  organism  can  be  affected  by  its 
mental  atmosphere.  Prejudice  and  superstition  might  influ- 
ence minds;  but  they  do  not  seem  adequate  to  influence 
material  movements.  Besides,  if  they  could,  they  are  them- 
selves the  outcome  of  material  activity.  If  there  be  preju- 
dice, superstition,  and  stupidity  in  the  world,  matter  is  to 
blame  for  it.  It  is  matter  that  hath  made  both  us  and  our 
opinions,  and  not  we  ourselves.  If,  then,  there  could  be 
any  distinction  between  reason  and  unreason  in  this  system, 
we  should  be  forced  to  allow  that,  along  with  a  little  right 
thinking,  matter  has  done  a  vast  deal  of  wrong  thinking.  It 
has  an  inherent  tendency  to  irrationality  and  falsehood.  It 
is  the  sole  source  of  theologies,  superstitions,  and  anthropo- 
morphisms, as  well  as  of  the  sun-clear  truths  of  advanced 
science.  If  we  were  persons  with  faculties  which  could  be 
carelessly  used  or  wilfully  misused,  these  things  might  be 
laid  to  the  charge  of  individual  carelessness  or  stupidity  or 
dishonesty  ;  but  as  we  are  not  such  persons,  all  these  things 
must  be  charged  to  matter  itself.  This  conclusion  remains 
if  we  call  matter  the  unknowable,  the  mysterious  one,  or 
anything  else  which  may  strike  our  fancy.  In  every  system 
of  necessity  we  have  to  posit  in  being,  along  with  reason, 
a  strong  tendency  to  unreason,  which  throws  discredit  on  all 
knowledge.  According  to  the  materialist  himself,  for  one 
sound  opinion  matter  has  produced  a  myriad  unsound  and 
grotesque  ones.  But  even  yet  we  have  no  ground  for  dis- 
tinguishing the  rational  from  the  irrational.  In  the  old 
philosophy  the  distinction  between  a  rational  and  an  irra- 
tional belief  is,  that  the  former  rests  on  grounds  which  jus- 
tify it,  while  the  latter  is  groundless.  But  materialism  can- 
cels this  distinction  entirely,  and  reduces  all  beliefs  to  effects 
in  us.  It  recognizes  production  only,  and  allows  of  no  de- 


398  METAPHYSICS. 

duction.  All  our  beliefs  are  explained  by  their  causes,  and 
none  have  any  rational  advantage  over  any  other.  The  only 
distinction  is  of  relative  extent ;  and  the  only  standard  pos- 
sible, unless  we  yield  to  pure  ipsedixitism,  is  to  take  a  vote 
and  view  rational  beliefs  as  those  which  are  most  wide- 
spread and  enduring.  But  even  this  is  impossible.  In 
raising  the  question  how  to  decide  between  opposing  beliefs 
we  have  implicitly  assumed  that  reasoning  is  possible,  and 
that  we  have  power  over  our  beliefs.  In  discussing  the  nat- 
ure of  the  infinite  we  pointed  out  that  rationality  and  the 
distinction  between  truth  and  error  are  possible  only  in  the 
fact  of  freedom.  Where  there  is  no  freedom,  there  is  no 
reason.  So  far  from  having  power  over  our  beliefs,  we 
are  our  beliefs,  and  they  are  determined  solely  by  the  nerves. 
If  there  were  any  reason  left,  the  only  conclusion  it  could 
draw  would  be  that  one  belief  is  as  good  as  another  as  long 
as  it  lasts.  The  actual  is  all,  and  any  rational  distinction  be- 
tween true  and  false  vanishes. 

Thus  we  have  traced  the  materialistic  theory  of  knowl- 
edge to  its  outcome,  and  the  outcome  is  overwhelming 
scepticism.  The  theory  can  lay  no  claim  to  be  either  scien- 
tific or  philosophic,  because  it  makes  both  science  and  phi- 
losophy impossible.  Looking  at  the  world  with  material- 
istic eyes,  we  see  a  necessary  kaleidoscopic  process.  Parts 
of  the  process  are  attended  by  thoughts,  partly  true,  but 
mostly  false.  All  of  these  thoughts  which  collide  with  ma- 
terialism are  known  to  be  false,  not  by  reasoning,  but  by 
hypothesis.  Throughout  the  world-process  there  is  a  strong 
and  almost  overwhelming  tendency  to  dream  and  falsehood ; 
and,  but  for  certain  advanced  thoughts,  error  would  have 
reigned  supreme.  We  say  advanced  thoughts,  for,  by  hy- 
pothesis, thinkers  do  not  exist.  Looking  at  human  life  and 
action,  we  see  pure  automatism.  The  action  of  men  and 
women  may  be  attended  with  thought  and  feeling;  but 
from  the  beginning  it  has  taken  place  without  any  interven- 
tion of  thought  and  feeling ;  for  there  is  no  reason  for  be- 


THE  SOUL.  399 

lieving  that  any  mental  state  can  affect  any  physical  state. 
Even  the  materialist's  thought  and  purpose  count  for  noth- 
ing in  the  exposition  and  publication  of  his  philosophy. 
By  his  own  theory  all  that  has  ever  been  done  in  this  direc- 
tion has  taken  place  without  any  control  or  guidance  of 
thought — a  statement  which  is  the  most  credible  of  the  ma- 
terialist's many  utterances.  Indeed,  this  statement  throws 
light  on  many  of  the  homilies  from  this  quarter.  It  has 
long  been  a  puzzle  to  the  critical  mind  how  any  rational 
being  could  produce  some  things  which  have  appeared  from 
materialistic  speculators.  But  now  we  see  that  reason  had 
nothing  to  do  with  their  production,  and  the  wonder  rather 
becomes  that  the  nerves  should  do  so  well. 

We  have  debated  the  question  thus  far  on  the  assumed 
ontological  reality  of  matter,  and  have  reached  the  follow- 
ing conclusions :  Materialism,  in  all  its  forms,  fails  utterly 
to  explain  the  most  prominent  facts  of  the  mental  life. 
Consciousness,  memory,  reasoning,  and  the  unity  of  the  ego 
are  impossible  on  the  theory.  The  apparent  success  of  ma- 
terialism in  making  them  the  phenomena  of  an  aggregate 
is  due  to  overlooking  the  mind  for  whom  the  phenomena 
exist.  The  theory,  then,  does  not  account  for  the  facts. 

Again,  if  we  allow  the  theory  and  develop  its  conse- 
quences, it  results  in  the  destruction  of  all  knowledge  and 
rationality.  Our  consciousness  of  power  is  declared  to  be  a 
delusion.  Our  belief  that  our  thoughts  and  purposes  count 
for  something  in  the  course  of  events  is  a  mistaken  fancy. 
Eeason  itself  is  merely  the  outcome  of  conflicting  nervous 
excitations.  Memory,  too,  loses  all  relation  to  the  past,  and 
represents  merely  what  the  brain  now  does,  and  not  what 
we  have  experienced.  There  is  no  valid  standard  of  dis- 
tinction between  truth  and  error,  and  no  power  to  apply  it 
if  there  were.  The  theory,  then,  not  only  does  not  account 
for  the  facts,  but  it  has  suicidal  consequences.  But  the  uni- 
versal test  of  a  theory  is  that  it  shall  account  for  the  facts 


400  METAPHYSICS. 

in  the  simplest  and  best  way,  and  that  the  deductions  from 
it  shall  always  harmonize  with  the  facts.  Materialism  fails 
in  both  respects.  The  spiritual  theory,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  so  simple  and  so  harmonious  with  the  facts  that  not  a  few 
declare  it  to  be  a  direct  utterance  of  consciousness  itself. 
Keason,  therefore,  rejects  materialism,  and  leaves  it  to  weak- 
ness and  volition. 

Our  own  view  of  the  soul  and  its  origin  has  already  been 
given  in  various  places,  but  it  may  be  repeated  in  a  brief 
paragraph.  Returning  in  thought  to  the  ontology,  the 
reader  will  observe  that  our  ontological  convictions  are  just 
the  opposite  of  those  of  the  materialist.  While  he  cannot 
believe  in  anything  but  a  phenomenal  spiritual  existence, 
we  cannot  believe  in  anything  but  a  phenomenal  material 
existence.  For  him  spirit  is  the  unsubstantial,  for  us  mat- 
ter is  the  unsubstantial.  Which  member  of  the  antithesis 
is  justified  can  be  decided  only  by  considering  the  argu- 
ments offered.  In  discussing  change,  we  found  that  only 
personality  fills  out  the  complete  notion  of  being.  In  treat- 
ing of  matter  and  force,  we  found  ourselves  compelled  to 
deny,  true  substantiality  to  the  elements,  and  to  reduce  them 
to  mere  acts  of  the  infinite.  Only  in  the  finite  spirit  can 
we  find  any  substantial  otherness  to  the  infinite.  From  this 
standpoint  the  ontological  reality  of  matter  disappears  en- 
tirely, and  with  it  the  materialistic  question  vanishes.  The 
soul  is  directly  posited  by  the  infinite  under  those  circum- 
stances which  he  has  made  the  norm  of  his  action.  As  thus 
posited,  it  represents  no  combination  of  antecedent  factors, 
but  a  new  beginning  in  the  system.  In  speaking  of  life, 
however,  we  spoke  of  a  phenomenal  materialism  ;  we  adopt 
the  same  here.  The  development  of  the  soul  proceeds  with 
that  of  the  body,  and  doubtless  in  the  same  way  as  the  ma- 
terialist supposes.  This,  of  course,  does  not  mean  that  the 
soul  is  ever  half-made;  this  would  be  absurd.  It  means 
that  the  unfolding  of  the  soul's  powers  is  conditioned  by  the 
advance  of  the  organism,  and  proceeds  parallel  with  it.  Our 


THE  SOUL.  401 

disagreement  with  the  materialist,  therefore,  is  ontological, 
and  not  phenomenal.  The  phenomena  are  the  same  for 
both;  the  difference  concerns  their  interpretation.  "We  re- 
ject the  materialist's  ontology  as  always  superficial,  and 
often  contradictory  ;  but  his  facts  we  accept  with  all  thank- 
fulness. For  those,  however,  who  may  find  our  dbctrine  of 
the  phenomenality  of  matter  rather  strong  meat,  we  point 
out  that  the  truth  of  spiritualism  is  in  no  way  dependent 
upon  it.  Our  entire  argument  for  spiritualism  has  been 
conducted  on  the  assumed  substantiality  of  matter. 

We  cannot  be  expected  to  represent  to  the  imagination  '. 
the  immanent  acts  of  the  infinite  whereby  new  factors  are  . 
posited  in  being.  We  rather  forbid  all  attempts  to  do  so  ; 
for  the  imagination  can  only  deal  with  space  -forms,  and 
space  itself  is  phenomenal.  So  far  as  we  may  speak  in 
terms  of  space,  we  should  say,  not  that  God  produces  souls 
in  an  outside  region  and  then  puts  them  in  bodies,  but  that 
where  and  when  the  order  of  things  which  he  has  adopted 
as  the  norm  of  his  action  calls  for  it,  there  and  then  a  soul 
begins  its  existence.  It  is  not,  however,  unrelated  to  its 
antecedents,  but  is  in  general  such  as  the  antecedents  call 
for  according  to  the  law  of  sequence  in  this  realm.  Hence 
the  facts  of  heredity.  But  heredity  is  not  the  only  fact  of 
the  system.  The  plan  of  things  may  also  call  for  advance  ; 
and  the  infinite  may  upon  occasion  break  with  heredity,  and 
posit  souls  with  higher  gifts  and  powers.  But  this  subject 
lies  beyond  human  knowledge  in  the  inscrutable  counsels  of 
the  divine  will.  But  in  thinking  of  the  matter  we  must  al- 
ways avoid  the  deistic  notion  of  an  outside  God,  and  remem- 
ber that  neither  body  nor  soul  develops  in  a  region  apart  j 

.^s 


from  God  and  by  itself,  but  that  God  is  immanent  in 

We  view  man  as  we  find  him,  then,  as  a  double  being. 
His  true  self  is  the  soul.  This,  however,  is  in  immediate 
interaction  with  the  body  ;  and  this,  in  turn,  is  simply  that 
part  of  the  cosmos  with  which  the  soul  is  in  immediate  re- 
lation ;  or,  rather,  it  is  a  connected  system  of  activities  on 
26 


£02  METAPHYSICS. 

the  part  of  the  infinite,  by  which  the  soul  is  put  in  connec- 
tion with  the  universe  and  furnished  with  the  conditions  of 
its  activity.  Of  course  we  do  not  fancy  that  this  result  an- 
swers all  questions,  for  it  leaves  many  questions  quite  un- 
touched. It  gives  no  insight  whatever  into  the  specific  and 
detailed  forms  of  the  interaction  between  soul  and  body,  or 
into  the  significance  of  the  body  for  our  mental  life.  These 
questions  must  be  left  to  inductive  science,  and  science  must 
be  content  with  describing  the  interaction  without  deducing 
it.  But  it  would  be  great  folly  to  reject  the  spiritual  con- 
ception because  it  does  not  answer  all  questions,  especially 
as  every  other  view  leads  to  hopeless  and  ghastly  nonsense. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  403 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING. 

THE  aim  of  this  chapter  is  to  expound  the  process  of 
knowledge,  and  especially  the  process  of  perception.  The 
nature  of  the  product  will  be  considered  in  the  next  chap- 
ter. As  usual,  we  start  from  the  common-sense  realism. 

When  two  persons  converse  together,  no  thoughts  leave 
the  mind  of  one  and  cross  into  the  mind  of  the  other. 
When  we  speak  of  an  exchange  of  thought,  even  the  crudest 
mind  recognizes  that  this  is  a  mere  figure  of  speech ;  or,  at 
least,  that  it  is  not  to  be  spatially  interpreted.  How,  then, 
is  an  exchange  of  thought  possible  ? 

The  answer  must  be,  first  of  all,  that  it  is  possible  only 
through  the  general  fact  of  interaction,  and  through  the  ex- 
istence of  a  system  of  signs  which  shall  be  understood  by 
both  persons.  Thought  is  never  perceived  in  itself,  but 
only  through  certain  natural  or  conventional  signs.  As  a 
subjective  act  it  cannot  be  perceived,  except  through  some 
objective  symbol.  But  the  general  fact  of  interaction  and 
a  system  of  signs  are  but  conditions  for  the  exchange  of 
thought.  The  actual  exchange  takes  place  only  through  a 
certain  activity  on  the  part  of  both.  One  thinks  and  gives 
the  appropriate  objective  sign.  The  other  perceives  the 
sign  and  reads  off  its  meaning.  The  sign  is  but  the  occa- 
sion upon  which  the  second  mind  constructs  within  itself 
the  thought  of  the  first,  and  then  attributes  the  thought  to 
the  first.  To  perceive  another's  thought,  we  must  construct 
his  thought  within  ourselves ;  and  our  perception  of  others' 


404  METAPHYSICS. 

thoughts  is  nothing  but  such  an  inner  construction,  plus  an 
attribution  of  them  to  others.  The  thought  is  our  own, 
and  is  strictly  original  with  us.  At  the  same  time  we  owe 
the  thought  to  the  other ;  and  if  it  had  not  originated  with 
him  it  would  probably  never  have  originated  with  us. 

But  what  has  the  other  done  ?  There  has  been  no  spatial 
or  ontological  contact,  and  there  has  been  no  transmission 
except  in  a  figurative  sense.  If  we  limit  the  communica- 
tion to  language,  we  must  say  that  the  speaker  emits  noth- 
ing and  the  hearer  receives  nothing.  What  the  speaker 
does  is  this:  By  an  entirely  mysterious  world-order  the 
speaker  is  enabled  to  produce  a  series  of  signs  which  are  to- 
tally unlike  thought,  but  which,  by  virtue  of  the  same  mys- 
terious order,  act  as  a  series  of  incitements  upon  the  hearer, 
so  that  he  constructs  in  himself  the  corresponding  mental 
state.  The  act  of  the  speaker  consists  in  availing  himself 
of  the  proper  incitements.  The  act  of  the  hearer  is  imme- 
diately only  the  reaction  of  the  soul  against  the  incitement. 
The  parallelism  of  the  resulting  mental  state  in  the  hearer 
with  that  of  the  speaker  is  the  sublimest  instance  of  adapta- 
tion, or  design,  of  which  the  known  universe  affords  any 
example. 

All  communion  between  finite  minds  is  of  this  sort.  In- 
struction and  education  of  every  kind  consist  not  in  pouring 
knowledge  into  the  mind,  but  in  directing  its  activity  so 
that  it  shall  develop  knowledge  within  itself.  The  wisest 
teacher  can  do  no  more  than  to  avail  himself  of  the  system 
of  signs,  or  incitements,  which  the  world -order  provides, 
and  then  trust  to  the  student's  mind  to  react  against  the  in- 
citement by  growing  thought  and  insight.  Education  is 
ever  and  only  a  leading  forth  of  the  mind's  own  powers ;  a 
putting  of  it  into  possession  of  itself.  This  fact,  however, 
does  not  imply  that  all  alike  are  capable  of  equal  develop- 
ment. What  we  have  said  applies  only  to  the  general  form 
of  the  interaction  between  finite  minds,  and  is  entirely  com- 
patible with  different  capacities  in  those  minds.  The  sys- 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  4Q5 

tern  of  signs  itself  must  be  learned,  and  hence  the  resulting 
reaction  in  the  learning  mind  is  conditioned  both  by  pre- 
vious knowledge  and  by  mental  facility.  Some  minds  are 
more  ductile  and  susceptible  than  others;  and,  by  conse- 
quence, they  respond  with  a  wealth  of  mental  action  to  in- 
citements which  to  others  would  be  no  incitements  what- 
ever. To  a  boor,  a  hacked  flint  would  say  nothing,  but  to 
an  archaeologist  it  might  be  a  volume  of  ancient  history. 
The  same  difficulty  which  leads  to  a  non-understanding  of 
the  signs  also  leads  often  to  a  misuse  of  the  signs,  so  that 
they  have  no  definite  meaning.  In  that  case  we  cannot 
construct  the  thought  from  the  sign,  either  because  it  in- 
dicates none,  or  because  it  admits  of  various  significations. 
It  is,  indeed,  quite  conceivable  that  the  relation  between  the 
incitement  and  the  reaction  of  thought  and  feeling  should 
be  fixed  and  universal.  If  such  were  the  case,  there  would 
be  no  misunderstanding,  and  no  difference  of  capacity  for 
receiving  instruction.  There  might  still  be  differences  in 
our  power  to  use  and  retain  knowledge,  but  there  would  be 
none  in  our  power  to  receive  and  comprehend  it.  But  none 
of  these  considerations  affect  our  conclusion  that  to  perceive 
another's  thought  we  must  construct  it  in  ourselves,  and 
that  to  inform  another  of  our  thought  is  simply  to  incite 
him  to  a  form  of  mental  action  like  our  own. 

Probably  no  reflecting  person  would  deny  this  conclusion ; 
but  when  we  say  that  what  is  thus  true  of  perception  of  an- 
other's thought  is  equally  true  of  the  perception  of  the  outer 
world  in  general,  many  minds  will  be  disposed  to  question, 
and  not  a  few  will  deny  it  outright.  Yet  there  is  no  alter-  V 
native  but  to  affirm  that  to  perceive  the  universe  we  must 
construct  it  in  thought,  and  that  our  knowledge  of  the  uni- 
verse is  but  the  unfolding  of  the  mind's  inner  nature,  the 
reaction  of  the  mind  against  incitement,  an  inner  interpreta- 
tion of  signs  which  are  as  unlike  the  things  perceived  as  the 
alphabet  is  unlike  the  thoughts  expressed  by  it.  The  justi- 
fication of  this  view  is  found  in  the  nature  of  interaction  it- 


406  METAPHYSICS. 

self.  We  are  beyond  the  point  where  it  is  necessary  to  show 
that  when  one  thing  acts  upon  another  it  contributes  noth- 
ing to  it,  but  only  furnishes  the  conditions  of  the  thing's  re- 
action. Which  of  many  possible  reactions  shall  be  realized 
depends  on  the  circumstances,  or  on  the  other  agents  acting ; 
but  the  reaction,  when  it  does  take  place,  is  always  an  ex- 
pression of  the  nature  of  the  reacting  thing.  We  have 
formulated  the  fact  of  interaction  as  follows:  When  A 
changes,  B,  C,  D,  etc.,  all  change  in  definite  order  and  de- 
gree ;  and  we  explain  this  by  saying  that  A  acts  on  B,  C, 
etc.  If  A  becomes  A,,  B  becomes  Bn  and  C  becomes  C,. 
If  A  becomes  An,  B  becomes  Bu,  etc.  But  Bn  is  always  and 
only  the  expression  of  what  B  is  under  the  condition  An. 
A  decides,  therefore,  which  of  several  possible  forms  B  shall 
assume ;  but  whatever  the  form  of  B,  it  is  always  an  expres- 
sion of  B's  own  nature.  Thus  in  the  atomic  theory,  we 
must  always  say  that  the  various  reactions  of  any  class  of 
elements  are  but  expressions  of  their  inner  nature.  Whether 
oxygen  and  hydrogen  shall  unite  to  form  water  depends  on 
various  conditions ;  but  when  they  unite,  the  union  is  the 
result  of  what  the  elements  themselves  are.  What  we  must 
say  of  all  interaction  we  must  say  of  the  interaction  between^, 
the  soul  and  the  not-soul.  'yTEeTeaction  of  the s  soul  in  sucli^, 
cases  is  an  expression  of  what  the  soul  is ;  and  represents  \ 
nothing  poured  into  the  soul  from  without,  but  simply  the 
action  of  the  soul  under  the  peculiar  circumstances.  Kow  f 
all  external  perception  rests  on  some  external  action  uponj 
the  soul.  The  mere  existence  of  a  thing  is  never,  even  on 
the  most  realistic  theory,  a  sufficient  ground  of  its  percep- 
tion. If  it  were,  there  would  be  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  be  perceptive  of  all  existence,  at  least  so  far  as  our  finite 
power  of  attention  and  comprehension  goes.  The  far  and 
the  near  would  be  alike  perceptible.  But  there  is  no  need 
to  insist  upon  this  point,  as  all  the  facts  of  perception  imply 
it,  and,  besides,  no  one  denies  it.^We^a^e^_only_to_call  at- 
tention to  its  implications.  /^Tlns~external  action,  like 


THE  PBOCESS  OF  KNOWING.  4Q7 

action,  furnishes  only  the  incitement  which  leads  to  a  pecul- 
Liar  reaction  on  the  part  of  the  soul/  Perception  is  the. 
product  of  such  reaction.^  Knowledge  is  not  passively  im- 
ported into  the  soul,  but  is  developed  by  the  soul  within  it- 
self. Just  as  we  perceive  another's  thought  by  constructing 
it  in  our  own  minds,  so  wejp^rceive  the  universe  by  a  simi- 
lar act  of  construction.  fT^heprocess  is  active,  and  not  pas- 
sive. It  is  constructive  rather  than  receptive ;  or  rather  it 
is  reception  only  through  construction.  Only  in  this  way 
can  knowledge  enter  the  mind.  Only  by  building  the  uni- 
verse in  thought  can  we  perceive  it.  To  the  question,  How 
is  perception  possible  ?  we  answer,  Perception  is  possible 
only  as  the  mind  constructs  its  objects  within  itsel£. __ 


The  ancients,  and  especially  the  scholastics,  gave  a  dif- 
ferent answer.  They  fancied  that  things  are  perpetually 
throwing  off  images,  or  forms,  or  species,  or  appearances 
which  drift  across  the  intervening  space,  and  finally  enter 
the  mind,  where  they  mediate  a  knowledge  of  the  things 
from  which  they  came.  It  is  not  necessary  to  criticise  this 
view,  as  it  has  long  been  abandoned.  In  fact,  the  theory 
was  about  the  best  possible  until  the  advent  of  modern 
physics.  The  absolute  necessity  that  the  mind  be  acted 
upon  in  order  to  perception,  made  it  equally  necessary  that 
some  medium  be  found  between  the  distant  object  and  the 
perceiving  mind.  Acoustics  and  optics  have  filled  up  this 
gap  by  vibrating  media,  and  have  thus  finally  dispensed  with 
species,  etc.  The  sensationalist  doctrine  of  impressions  as 
explaining  perception  is  not  a  theory  at  all.  It  is  merely 
a  figure  of  speech  which  distorts  rather  than  describes  the 
fact.  The  Lockian  metaphor  of  a  tabula  rasa  has  played 
the  same  misleading  part,  and  has  led  many  to  fancy  the 
process  explained.  By  describing  the  mind  as  a  waxen  tab- 
let, and  things  as  impressing  themselves  upon  it,  we  seem  to 
get  great  insight  until  we  think  to  ask  where  this  extended 
tablet  is,  and  how  things  stamp  themselves  on  it,  and  how 
the  perceptive  act  would  be  explained  even  if  they  did. 


408  METAPHYSICS. 

When  these  questions  are  raised  and  pursued,  it  becomes 
clear  that  we  are  dealing  only  with  a  misleading  figure  of 
speech.  Impressions,  photographs,  etc.,  are  at  best  only  de- 
scriptions of  the  fact,  and  are  quite  empty  as  explanations 
of  it.  Even  if  we  should  make  the  grotesque  supposition 
that  things  really  stamp  or  photograph  themselves  on  the 
mind  as  an  extended  substance,  the  perceptive  act  is  as  far 
from  being  explained  as  ever.  All  that  we  should  have 
would  be  an  outline  on  the  mind,  and  not  a  thought  in  the 
mind.  Not  a  step  would  be  taken  towards  subjectivity. 
This  could  be  reached  only  as  the  mind,  by  an  inner  act, 
changed  the  stamp  or  image  into  a  conception ;  that  is,  the 
mind  would  still  have  to  react  against  the  objective  impres- 
sion, by  producing  a  subjective  perception.  Until  this  is 
done,  the  impression  would  be  as  external  and  as  dead  when 
made  on  the  mind  as  when  made  on  the  cake  of  wax.  The 
strength  of  such  figures  of  speech  lies  in  the  fact  that  we 
regard  the  knowing  mind  as  something  objective  to  our- 
selves. Accordingly,  when  we  figure  the  mind  as  a  tablet 
with  pictures  on  it,  we  also  conceive  of  ourselves  as  looking 
at  the  picture,  and  then  we  mistake  our  imagined  perception 
of  the  picture  for  its  perception  by  the  impressed  mind. 
The  investigator  confounds  himself  with  the  person  investi- 
gated ;  and  since  the  former  is  conscious  of  his  own  fancies 
about  the  latter,  he  thinks  the  problem  solved.  We  return, 
then,  to  our  previous  view.  Perception  is  not  possible  as  a 
passive  importation  of  ready-made  knowledge  into  the  mind, 
or  by  any  pictures  or  impressions  on  the  mind,  but  only  by 
an  immanent  activity  in  the  mind,  whereby  the  mind,  upon 
occasion  of  certain  excitations,  constructs  within  itself  the 
conception  of  an  object,  and  objectifies  it  under  the  form  of 
externality. 

The  conclusion  which  we  thus  reach  from  the  nature  of 
interaction  appears  with  equal  necessity  when  we  regard  the 
physiological  facts  concerning  the  conditions  of  perception. 
The  idealist  might  be  inclined  to  reckon  these  facts  them- 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  409 

selves  as  phenomena,  but  the  realist  must  allow  their  full 
force.  Realism  can  never  complain  if  its  own  facts  remove 
the  mind  to  a  great  distance  from  the  object,  and  restrict 
the  knowing  process  to  an  interpretation  of  signs  which  are 
totally  unlike  the  object.  On  the  realistic  theory  of  com- 
mon-sense, such  is  the  case.  The  immediate  antecedents  of 
sensation  and  perception  are  a  series  of  nervous  changes  in 
the  brain.  Whatever  we  know  of  the  outer  world  is  re- 
vealed only  in  and  through  these  nervous  changes.  But 
these  are  totally  unlike  the  objects  assumed  to  exist  as  their 
causes.  If  we  might  conceive  the  mind  as  in  the  light,  and 
in  direct  contact  with  its  objects,  the  imagination  at  least 
would  be  comforted ;  but  when  we  conceive  the  mind  as 
coming  in  contact  with  the  outer  world  only  in  the  dark 
chamber  of  the  skull,  and  then  not  in  contact  with  the  ob- 
jects perceived,  but  only  with  a  series  of  nerve  changes  of 
which,  moreover,  it  knows  nothing,  it  is  plain  that  the  object 
is  a  long  way  off.  All  talk  of  pictures,  impressions,  etc., 
ceases  because  of  the  lack  of  all  the  conditions  to  give  such 
figures  any  meaning.  It  is  not  even  clear  that  we  shall  ever 
find  our  way  out  of  the  darkness  into  the  world  of  light  and 
reality  again.  We  begin  with  complete  trust  in  physics  and 
the  senses,  and  are  forthwith  led  away  from  the  object  into 
a  nervous  labyrinth,  where  the  object  is  entirely  displaced 
by  a  set  of  nervous  changes  which  are  totally  unlike  any- 
thing but  themselves.  Finally,  we  land  in  the  dark  chamber 
of  the  skull.  The  object  has  gone  completely,  and  knowl- 
edge has  not  yet  appeared.  Nervous  signs  are  the  raw  ma- 
terial of  all  knowledge  of  the  outer  world  according  to  the 
most  decided  realism.  But  in  order  to  pass  beyond  these 
signs  into  a  knowledge  of  the  outer  world,  we  must  posit  an 
interpreter  who  shall  read  back  these  signs  into  their  objec- 
tive meaning.  But  that  interpreter,  again,  must  implicitly 
contain  the  meaning  of  the  universe  within  itself;  and  these 
signs  are  really  but  excitations  which  cause  the  soul  to  un- 
fold what  is  within  itself.  Inasmuch  as  by  common  consent 


410       "  METAPHYSICS. 

the  soul  communicates  with  the  outer  world  only  through 
these  signs,  and  never  comes  nearer  to  the  object  than  such 
signs  can  bring  it,  it  follows  that  the  principles  of  interpre- 
tation must  be  in  the  mind  itself,  and  that  the  resulting  con- 
struction is  primarily  only  an  expression  of  the  mind's  own 
nature.  All  reaction  is  of  this  sort ;  it  expresses  the  nature 
of  the  reacting  agent,  and  knowledge  comes  under  the  same 
head.  This  fact  makes  it  necessary  for  us  either  to  admit  a 
pre-established  harmony  between  the  laws  and  nature  of 
thought  and  the  laws  and  nature  of  things,  or  else  to  allow 
that  the  objects  of  perception,  the  universe  as  it  appears,  are 
purely  phenomenal,  being  but  the  way  in  which  the  mind 
reacts  against  the  ground  of  its  sensations.  We  shall  return 
to  this  point  in  a  later  chapter ;  for  the  present  we  content 
ourselves  with  reaffirming  the  constructive  action  of  the 
mind  as  an  absolute  condition  of  external  perception. 

Psychologists  of  the  Scotch  school  have  often  sought  to 
evade  this  conclusion  by  speaking  of  an  immediate  knowl- 
edge or  a  direct  gaze  on  reality,  etc.  These  expressions  are 
well  calculated  to  seem  conclusive.  The  notion  of  immedi- 
ate knowledge  appears  to  forbid  any  mediation,  and  all  ideal- 
istic inferences  are  excluded.  There  is  nothing  to  do  but  to 
admit  the  facts  thus  immediately  known.  The  direct  gaze 
on  reality  has  the  same  implication.  We  open  our  eyes,  and 
the  world  lies  before  us.  It  is  immediate  vision.  That 
which  makes  this  notion  so  very  clear  is  the  misleading  in- 
fluence of  our  visual  experience.  We  mistake  the  body  for 
ourselves ;  and  as  we  see  our  hand  in  contact  with  the  ob- 
ject, we  are  sure  that  we  have  immediate  contact  with  being. 
But  in  fact  the  question  still  remains,  How  is  this  direct 
gaze  of  the  mind  on  reality  possible  ?  And  this  we  must 
answer  as  we  have  already  done.  Things  neither  photo- 
graph nor  stamp  themselves  upon  the  mind ;  these  expres- 
sions are  seen  to  be  misleading  figures  of  speech.  Things 
act  upon  the  mind,  and  the  mind  reacts  by  constructing  in 
itself  the  thought  of  an  object,  and  this  constitutes  our 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  4H 

knowledge  of  the  thing.  Even  with  the  notion  of  im- 
mediate knowledge  we  cannot  dispense  with  the  fact  and 
implications  of  interaction.  Mediate  knowledge  in  sense- 
perception  is  that  gained  by  inference,  as  in  the  acquired 
perci-ptiuiis  ;  and  immediate  knowledge  can  only  mean  such 
knowledge  as  results  from  a  direct  interaction  between  the 
self  and  the  not-self.  Such  knowledge  is  not  an  inference. 
There  are  no  intermediate  mental  steps ;  and  the  resulting 
mental  act  or  state  is  that  which  directly  follows  from  the 
external  activity  according  to  the  law  which  governs  the 
interaction.  But  immediate  knowledge  implies  no  passive 
reception  of  ready-made  knowledge.  It  comes  under  the 
general  law  of  interaction,  and  can  only  be  viewed  as  the 
result  of  a  mental  construction.  We  return,  then,  to  our 
affirmation  that  perception  is  possible  only  through  a  con- 
structive activity  on  the  part  of  the  mind,  and  that  this  ac- 
tivity is  aroused  not  by  any  contact  with  the  objects  per- 
ceived, but  only  by  certain  excitations  which  are  totally 
unlike  the  object. 

It  may  possibly  occur  to  the  disciple  of  the  Scotch  school 
to  say  that  we  are  confounding  the  conditions  of  perception 
with  perception  itself.  When  the  conditions  are  fulfilled, 
the  mind  gazes  directly  on  reality.  But  no  relief  can  be 
found  in  this  direction.  These  conditions  really  condition  ; 
so  much  so  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  the  present 
order  of  sensations  were  maintained  in  us,  no  matter  how, 
the  assumed  real  world  might  fall  away  without  our  missing 
it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  so-called  sense-illusions  arise  in 
this  way.  The  signs  are  mimicked,  and  we  see  something 
where  there  is  nothing  to  see.  That  we  are  mistaken  in 
such  a  case  is  known  only  by  the  disagreement  of  one  sense 
with  another,  or  by  the  non-existence  of  the  object  for  other 
persons.  Even  Eeid,  who  would  hear  nothing  of  represen- 
tation, and  who  insisted  upon  an  immediate  knowledge  of 
reality,  could  find  no  way  of  connecting  the  sensation  with 
an  object  except  by  positing  an  instinct  or  original  principle 


412  METAPHYSICS. 

of  our  constitution,  whereby,  upon  occasion  of  sensation,  we 
are  led  to  affirm  a  thing.  Hence,  in  spite  of  the  immediate- 
ness  of  perception,  trust  in  knowledge  is  made  to  rest  upon 
the  veracity  of  God,  which,  it  is  assumed,  would  be  impugned 
if  the  things  were  not  really  there.  On  this  theory,  then, 
knowledge  does  not  depend  on  the  presence  of  the  thing, 
but  on  the  sensation,  plus  the  instinct,  or  original  principle  ; 
and  the  sensation  is  constantly  asserted  to  be  totally  unlike 
the  thing.  Hence,  the  vision  of  the  world,  even  on  Reid's 
theory,  is  not  something  which  passes  into  the  mind,  but 
something  which  unfolds  in  the  mind  under  certain  excita- 
tions. Here,  too,  in  order  to  know  the  universe  without,  it 
must  also  be  within.  It  must  be  given  in  plan  and  princi- 
ple in  the  knowing  mind.  If  we  might  personify  the  uni- 
verse, and  attribute  to  it  a  desire  to  pass  into  human  knowl- 
edge, or  to  appear  in  the  human  mind,  we  should  say  that  it 
must  proceed  just  as  a  human  teacher  does.  The  latter 
avails  himself  of  a  system  of  excitations  whereby  he  incites 
the  mind  of  the  student  to  unfold  itself  and  to  develop 
knowledge  within  itself.  All  the  while  he  is  putting  noth- 
ing in,  but  is  leading  the  mind  out  into  the  possession  of  it- 
self. In  the  same  way  must  the  universe  proceed.  It  can 
put  nothing  into  the  mind,  but  must  seek  to  bring  out  of 
the  mind  the  treasures  hidden  there.  It  can,  then,  only 
avail  itself  of  a  certain  system  of  excitations  which  shall 
lead  the  mind  to  unfold.  The  objective  macrocosm  can  pass 
into  knowledge  only  through  the  subjective  microcosm. 
However  realistic  our  views  may  be,  we  cannot  escape  this 
conclusion. 

Our  view  of  perception  as  involving  an  excitation  of  the 
soul  by  something  not  itself,  and  a  corresponding  reaction 
by  the  soul,  demands  a  consideration  (1)  of  the  excitation, 
and  (2)  of  the  reaction. 

The  first  point  we  leave  to  physiological  psychology. 
Physiology  finds  the  ground  of  our  sensations  in  certain 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  413 

movements  in  the  brain;  the  idealist  finds  it  in  a  direct  ac- 
tion of  the  infinite  upon  the  soul.  Allowing  the  claim  of 
the  physiologists,  it  must  still  be  allowed  that  the  nature 
and  form  of  these  brain-movements  are  in  the  highest  de- 
gree obscure.  Prophecy  lias  not  been  wanting,  but  there 
has  been  less  of  fulfilment.  However,  there  is  nothing  so 
potent  in  the  solution  of  problems  as  the  mysterious.  Hence, 
the  obscurity  and  mystery  of  brain-physiology  in  relation  to 
mind  have  not  failed  to  produce  a  large  and  growing  brain- 
mythology.  We  pass  to  the  reaction. 

The  mental  reaction  is  double,  involving  both  sensation 
and  thought-activity.  There  is  no  aprioii  reason  for  this 
order.  That  the  soul  must  be  affected  by  the  not-soul,  in 
order  to  react  with  knowledge,  is  a  demand  of  causation, 
but  it  is  entirely  conceivable  that  this  affection  should  man- 
ifest itself  only  in  the  resulting  perception,  and  never  as  a 
distinct  element  of  consciousness.  If  this  were  the  case, 
there  would  be  no  sensation,  and  the  mental  state  would  be 
exhausted  in  the  perception  of  the  object.  The  so-called 
acquired  perceptions,  also,  would  not  exist,  but  perception 
would  be  immediate,  and  without  a  process.  The  mind 
would  pass  at  once  into  the  mental  state  corresponding  to 
the  object,  just  as  a  mirror  immediately  reflects  the  objects 
presented  to  it.  But  this  is  not  the  case.  The  first  effect 
of  external  action  is  to  produce  sensitive  states  in  the  soul, 
and  perception  arises  only  through  combining  and  reacting 
upon  these  states.  The  process  is  a  temporal  one,  and  per- 
ception proper  arises  gradually.  Thus  it  becomes  possible 
to  distinguish  the  doctrine  of  sensation  from  that  of  per- 
ception. The  sensation  is  the  primal  and  basal  reaction  of 
the  soul  against  external  action  ;  and  sensations,  rather  than 
nerve-changes,  constitute  the  true  raw  material  of  knowl- 
edge. From  the  idealist's  standpoint,  the  body  is  only  a 
phenomenon,  and  hence  cannot  be  the  cause  of  our  sensa- 
tions ;  but,  for  psychologists  of  every  school,  sensations  ex- 
ist as  raw  material.  They  constitute,  also,  the  excitations 


41 4:  METAPHYSICS. 

which  arouse  the  soul  to  a  higher  thought  -  activity  and 
thought-construction. 

We  are  beyond  the  need  of  showing  that  sensations  are 
not  imported  ready-made  into  the  mind.  As  long  as  we  re- 
main in  the  physical  realm,  we  have  matter  in  motion,  not 
sensation.  We  are,  also,  beyond  the  fancy  that  sensation 
can  ever  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  matter.  There  must 
come  a  moment  of  direct  interaction  between  mind  and 
body,  one  member  of  which  will  be  a  physical  change  in 
the  brain,  and  the  other  member  of  which  will  be  a  sensa- 
tion in  the  mind.  The  attempt  to  find  some  go-between, 
which  shall  be  neither  physical  change  nor  sensation,  rests 
upon  a  confused  imagination,  and  only  increases  our  diffi- 
culties. We  are  led  to  this  attempt  by  the  desire  for  ex- 
planation. Immediate  interaction  is  always  a  fact  to  be 
recognized,  not  understood.  Hence  we  seek  to  interpolate 
members  in  order  to  give  the  explaining  and  deducing  ten- 
dency some  satisfaction.  But  explanation  cannot  go  on  for- 
ever. The  interpolated  members  must  themselves  be  in 
interaction  with  those  between  which  they  are  located,  and 
thus  the  number  of  direct  interactions  is  increased  rather 
than  diminished.  Another  source  of  the  desire  to  interpo- 
late members  is  the  fancy  that,  by  a  series  of  intermedi- 
ates, the  gulf  between  the  physical  and  the  mental  can  be 
filled  up;  and  this  fancy,  again,  rests  upon  the  further  fan- 
cy that  interaction  between  things  of  the  same  kind  is  more 
intelligible  than  that  between  unlike  things.  We  have  al- 
ready seen  the  baselessness  of  this  notion.  The  direct  ac- 
tion between  body  and  soul  is  in  no  way  more  incompre- 
hensible than  that  between  two  physical  elements.  All  that 
physiological  psychology  can  profitably  do  in  this  matter  is 
to  study  the  conditions  of  sensation  and  the  relations  be- 
tween the  physical  and  the  mental  series.  Such  knowledge 
is  attainable  and  valuable,  but  the  attempt  to  comprehend 
how  a  physical  movement  can  cause  a  sensation  implies  a 
state  of  mind  from  which  nothing  valuable  is  likely  to  result. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  415 

Of  the  physical  conditions  of  sensation  nothing  can  be 
said  apriori.  All  interaction  expresses  a  community  of  the 
interacting  things.  The  physical  elements  are  conceived  as 
sensitive  to  all  the  changes  in  one  another.  The  conditions 
of  inner  change  are  found  throughout  the  entire  system.  If, 
now,  we  should  endow  them  with  consciousness  of  these  in- 
ner changes,  the  conditions  of  that  consciousness  would  not 
be  contained  in  the  action  of  the  neighboring  atoms  only, 
but  in  that  of  every  atom  in  the  system.  It  is  equally  pos- 
sible, as  a  conception,  that  the  soul  should  be  directly  cog- 
nizant of  the  changes  in  the  outer  world,  so  that  all  phys- 
ical movements  should  be  followed  by  sensation  and  per- 
ception. The  doctrine  of  the  clairvoyants,  who  claim  to 
see  things  by  some  direct  gaze  of  the  soul,  and  without  any 
help  of  the  senses,  is,  in  itself,  not  one  whit  more  mysteri- 
ous than  the  ordinary  mode  of  perception.  The  claim,  some- 
times made,  of  an  ability  to  see  through  the  skin  or  the  back 
of  the  head,  etc.,  involves,  in  itself,  nothing  stranger  than 
the  common  facts  of  perception ;  while,  for  personal  com- 
munion, the  notion  of  a  direct  sympathy  of  mind  with  mind 
is,  apriori,  at  least  as  possible  as  any  other.  That  a  move- 
ment out  of  the  brain  should  be  attended  by  thought  and 
feeling  would  be  no  more  wonderful  than  that  a  movement 
in  the  brain  is  thus  attended.  The  only  reason  for  the  dif- 
ference is,  that  the  brain  is  in  interaction  with  the  mind, 
while  the  outer  world  is  not.  But  there  is  no  assignable 
reason  why  this  interaction  should  not  extend  beyond  the 
organism.  But  what  is  thus  possible  in  conception  is  far 
enough  from  being  the  fact.  A  very  small  part  of  the  sys- 
tem is  organic  to  the  soul ;  and  even  organic  changes  pro- 
duce no  known  effect  in  the  soul,  except  as  they  are  propa- 
gated to  a  central  organ  by  means  of  nervous  connection. 
Adopting  the  realistic  theory,  we  say  that  the  interaction 
between  soul  and  body  takes  place  in  the  brain.  When 
there  are  certain  forms  of  brain-action,  certain  sensations  re- 
sult in  the  soul.  This  order,  however,  is  no  apriori  neces- 


416  METAPHYSICS. 

sity.  Why  there  should  be  a  body,  and  why  it  should  be 
such  as  it  is,  are  questions  to  which  there  is  no  sufficient  an- 
swer in  human  knowledge.  The  body  is,  for  the  spiritual- 
ist, only  a  contrivance  for  eliciting  and  guiding  the  menta] 
life ;  but  why  it  should  be  as  it  is,  and  why  the  result  is  not 
reached  in  a  more  direct  way,  are  questions  whose  answers 
lie  beyond  the  human  horizon.  Indeed,  there  is  a  certain 
grotesqueness  in  most  of  the  duties  of  the  present  life. 
That  a  soul  should  have  to  watch  over  a  body,  and  feed  and 
shelter  it  for  a  lifetime,  seems  quite  absurd.  How  much 
better  it  would  be  if  we  could  devote  ourselves  to  pure 
thought  or  to  aesthetic  considerations,  instead  of  spending 
by  far  the  larger  part  of  our  strength  in  purely  material 
effort  for  material  interests.  These  considerations  have  so 
impressed  some  persons  as  to  lead  to  a  distribution  of  labor, 
according  to  which  the  lower  interests  are  turned  over  to 
the  soul,  while  the  higher  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  spirit.  Un- 
fortunately, this  division  of  labor  is  imaginary.  The  spirit 
has  as  much  trouble  on  this  view  as  on  any  other.  But 
why  should  a  spirit  be  tied  to  food  and  clothes  and  sleep, 
and  be  compelled  to  busy  itself  so  largely  with  physical  in- 
terests ?  No  answer  can  be  given.  We  are  in  a  body,  and 
our  mental  and  spiritual  well-being  is  firmly  bound  up  with 
it.  To  discover  the  forms  and  laws  of  the  interaction  be- 
tween soul  and  body,  and  also  the  detailed  significance  of 
the  body  for  the  mental  life,  is  the  province  of  physiolog- 
ical psychology.  Our  aim  is,  simply,  to  determine  some 
principles  which  must  rule  such  investigations.  Before  be- 
ginning discovery,  it  is  sometimes  important  to  know  what 
may  be  discovered.  Otherwise,  strength  may  be  wasted  in 
forming  hypotheses  which  are  inconsistent  with  reason  itself. 

The  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  holds  in  the  phys- 
ical world,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  interest  to  know  how  the 
soul  is  related  to  this  law  in  its  interaction  with  the  phys- 
ical world.  We  have  discussed  this  doctrine  in  the  chapter 


THE   PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  417 

on  matter  and  force,  and  need  not  recall  the  limitations 
mentioned  there.  With  regard  to  the  relations  of  the  soul 
to  the  energy  of  the  physical  system  but  two  views  are  pos- 
sible, which  we  can  best  get  before  us  in  the  following  way : 
If  we  should  trace  an  in-going  nerve-current,  which  is  to  be 
attended  with  sensation,  should  we  find,  at  any  point  of  the 
series,  a  loss  of  physical  energy  which  had  been  expended 
in  causing  the  mind  to  react  ?  or  should  we  find  the  energy 
of  every  physical  antecedent  completely  reproduced  in  the 
physical  consequent  ?  Conversely,  if,  starting  from  the 
mental  side,  we  could  measure  the  energy  of  the  nervous 
state  just  before  volition,  should  we  find  an  influx  of  energy 
which  could  not  be  accounted  for  by  the  previous  nervous 
state?  These  questions  contain  the  problem.  Our  answer, 
either  way,  can  only  express  an  opinion,  as  knowledge  is 
impossible.  The  first  view  is,  essentially,  that  of  the  pre- 
established  harmony.  In  that  case,  the  physical  series  would 
have  no  connection  with  the  mental  series ;  and  the  cause 
of  sensation  must  be  found,  not  in  the  physical  world,  but 
in  the  direct  action  of  the  infinite,  who  would  himself  there- 
by become  the  source  of  all  excitation,  and  hence  of  our 
world-vision.  In  that  case,  the  physical  series  would  be- 
come a  pure  phenomenon.  We  posit  that  series  only  as  the 
objective  ground  of  our  sensations,  and  when,  by  hypothe- 
sis, it  no  longer  serves  as  such  ground,  then  its  reason  of 
existence  ceases,  and  we  could  know  of  its  existence  only 
by  a  special  revelation.  Our  vision  of  the  world  is  purely 
a  product  of  the  mind  in  reaction  against  the  ground  of  its 
sensations,  and  if  this  ground  be  the  infinite  itself,  we  are 
led  directly  to  Berkeleianism.  Certainly  the  average  Amer- 
ican realist  would  be  rather  averse  to  this  position,  and,  for 
him,  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  take  the  other,  according  to 
which  the  interaction  of  soul  and  body  is  attended  by  a 
mutual  expenditure  of  energy.  Physical  energy  does  not 
become  mental  energy,  and,  conversely,  mental  energy  does 
not  become  physical  energy,  but  each  may  be  expended  in 
'"  27 


418  METAPHYSICS. 

furnishing  the  conditions  of  the  other.  From  the  standpoint 
of  the  phenomenal  reality  and  the  transcendental  ideality  of 
the  physical  system,  this  conclusion  is  phenomenally  correct 
and  transcendentally  doubtful.  But  this  result,  however 
true,  holds  only  for  that  direct  interaction  of  soul  and  body 
where  each  excites  the  other  to  activity,  as  in  sensation  and 
volition.  For  that  great  part  of  our  mental  life  which  is 
subjective  in  its  origin,  as  reasoning,  reflection,  and  emo- 
tion, the  law  can  have  no  significance,  until  it  is  shown  that 
every  act  of  thought,  reflection,  etc.,  has  a  direct  external 
excitation.  Even  in  the  physical  realm  the  law  holds  only 
for  those  energies  which  result  in  motion.  If  the  elements 
could  maintain  an  inner  series  of  thoughts  within  them- 
selves, that  series  would  lie  outside  of  the  law  of  conserva- 
tion. In  the  same  way,  if  the  mind,  though  aroused  by 
the  outer  world,  be  capable  of  continuing  a  mental  series 
within  itself,  without  further  excitation  from  without,  that 
scries,  also,  lies  beyond  the  law  of  conservation. 

This  leads  to  another  question.  The  physical  series  is 
totally  unlike  the  series  of  sensations  which  accompany  it. 
Still  there  must  be  some  fixed  relation  between  the  two,  or 
sensation  would  be  lawless.  The  nervous  series  in  vision 
cannot  be  the  same  as  that  in  hearing;  otherwise  there 
would  be  no  reason  why  the  result  should  be  one  rather 
than  the  other.  Again,  an  increased  intensity  of  nervous 
action  ought  to  be  followed  by  greater  intensity  of  sensation. 
The  question  divides  in  two :  (1)  What  is  the  relation  be- 
tween the  intensity  of  nervous  action  and  that  of  the  result- 
ing sensation?  (2)  Has  every  mental  state  a  specific  and 
peculiar  nervous  sign,  so  that  from  the  sign  we  could  infer 
the  corresponding  state?  The  first  question  is  one  of  ex- 
periment ;  the  second  is  one  of  opinion  only.  The  mate- 
rialist insists,  of  course,  that  every  conscious  state  has  a 
molecular  attendant  and  a  molecular  equivalent. 

To  the  first  question  experiment  has  as  yet  returned  no 
sufficient  answer.  It  may  be  viewed  as  settled  that  the  in- 


THE   PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  419 

tensity  of  excitation  and  that  of  sensation  are  not  in  direct 
ratio.  Fechner,  building  upon  Weber's  experiments,  has 
announced  the  law  to  be,  that  the  intensity  of  the  sensation 
varies  as  the  logarithm  of  the  intensity  of  the  excitation. 
The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  experiment,  however,  are  so 
great  that  no  faith  can  be  placed  in  the  results.  To  begin 
with,  there  is  no  fixed  standard  of  the  intensity  of  sensation. 
It  is  easy  to  know  by  the  themometer  when  water  is  twice 
as  hot,  but  it  would  be  hard,  indeed,  to  tell  when  it  feels 
twice  as  hot ;  and  yet  without  this  inner  standard  there  are 
no  data  for  comparison.  Again,  the  intensity  of  sensation 
does  not  depend  solely  on  the  amount  of  nervous  action, 
but  on  the  amount  of  difference  between  the  two  excitations. 
Thus  water  may  be  very  hot  to  one  hand  which  has  been 
holding  a  piece  of  ice,  while  it  may  be  quite  cool  to  the 
other  hand  which  has  been  heated  at  the  fire.  Further,  the 
intensity  of  sensation  varies  with  the  attention  of  the  mind. 
Attention  can  intensify  sensation,  and  inattention  can  re- 
duce it  to  a  vanishing  quantity.  The  most  of  the  sights  and 
sounds  which  fall  upon  our  organs  pass  unnoticed,  and 
thus  never  enter  into  distinct  consciousness  at  all.  Even 
the  soldier  may  receive  a  terrible  wound  in  the  excitement 
of  battle,  and  not  feel  it  at  the  time.  Upon  the  possibility 
of  abstracting  our  attention  from  what  would  become  sen- 
sation, if  we  attended  to  it,  depends  the  development  of  our 
higher  rational  life.  Here  we  have  the  first  act  of  that  free- 
dom without  which  reason  itself  would  be  impossible.  On 
the  other  hand,  expectation  and  belief  are  capable  of  inten- 
sifying and  even  of  producing  sensation.  The  belief  that 
one  is  hurt  has  often  produced  the  appropriate  pains ;  while 
the  simple  expectation  of  being  tickled  is  enough  to  fill 
many  with  excessive  uneasiness.  The  further  fact  is  to  be 
noticed  that  an  increased  intensity  of  excitation  often  re- 
sults in  a  change  of  kind  in  the  sensation  rather  than  in 
an  increased  intensity.  A  mild  warmth  is  pleasing;  but  a 
high  heat  is  painful.  To  call  the  pain  of  a  burn  an  intense 


420  .  METAPHYSICS. 

form  of  pleasure  is  hardly  in  accordance  with  good  sense. 
Of  course,  the  absolute  intensity  of  sensation  is  purely  indi- 
vidual. The  same  physical  cause  will  have  very  different 
sensitive  effects  in  different  persons.  Nor  are  these  all  the 
difficulties  by  any  means  in  the  way  of  experiment  in  this 
subject ;  but  these  are  enough  to  throw  doubt  upon  any 
fixed  law  as  to  the  relation  between  the  intensity  of  the 
physical  action  and  that  of  the  sensational  effect.  It  may 
be  that  Fechner's  law  expresses  the  relation  in  the  ideal 
case,  just  as  the  simple  formula  for  the  pulley  expresses  the 
law  of  the  ideal  pulley's  action,  but  which,  owing  to  friction 
and  the  stiffness  of  cordage,  is  never  actually  true.  Perhaps, 
then,  if  a  constant  amount  of  attention  and  expectation  could 
be  maintained  in  some  one  who  could  also  exactly  measure 
the  numerical  intensity  of  his  sensations  the  law  might  be 
found  to  hold.  Bearing  in  mind  what  we  have  said  con- 
cerning the  mechanical  theory,  it  is  clear  that  the  actual 
outcome,  in  any  case,  must  be  determined  by  some  general 
law ;  but  the  factors  which  are  to  be  united  are  not  merely 
the  invariable  ones  of  physics,  but  some  of  them  are  depend- 
ent on  volition.  Given  all  the  factors — the  attention,  the  ex- 
pectation, and  the  previous  state  of  tine  soul,  as  well  as  the 
nervous  factor — no  doubt  the  sensational  outcome  is  a  fixed 
and  necessary  one. 

The  answer  to  the  second  question  is  excessively  easy  to 
the  materialist.  He  has  no  doubt  that  every  mental  state 
is  attended  by  a  specific  and  peculiar  nervous  state,  and  has 
a  fixed  molecular  equivalent.  He  claims  that,  if  brain  phys- 
iology were  thoroughly  understood  in  its  relation  to  the 
mind,  then,  if  we  could  look  into  a  brain  so  as  to  perceive 
all  its  circumstances,  we  could  read  off  all  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  which  are  passing  in  the  mind.  Each  nervous 
state  would  have  its  appropriate  mental  state.  Unfortunate- 
ly the  materialist  is  more  given  to  drawing  his  facts  from 
his  theory  than  he  is  to  drawing  his  theory  from  the  facts. 
But  materialism  is  for  us  "  an  overcome  standpoint,"  and  we 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  421 

need  not  consider  its  objections.  The  view  winch  we  are 
considering,  however,  may  also  be  held  by  the  spiritualist. 
Admitting  an  interaction  between  soul  and  body,  it  is  also 
possible  to  hold  that  all  thought  and  feeling  result  from 
this  interaction,  and,  hence,  that  the  physical  and  mental 
series  correspond  throughout  their  entire  length.  If  we 
should  allow  this  to  be  so,  the  next  question  would  be  as  to 
which  is  first,  the  physical  or  the  mental  series.  To  make 
them  mutually  independent  would  be  to  fall  back  into  the 
pre-established  harmony,  and  ultimately  into  idealism  j  for 
as  soon  as  the  mental  series  is  allowed  to  be  independent, 
the  physical  series  becomes  a  pure  phenomenon.  But  we 
cannot  make  the  mental  series  entirely  dependent  on  the 
physical  series,  and  deny  the  mind  any  self-control ;  for,  in 
that  case,  we  should  fall  back  into  the  sceptical  difficulties 
which  we  mentioned  in  the  previous  chapter,  when  consid- 
ering the  materialistic  doctrine  of  the  relation  between  the 
physical  and  the  mental  series.  Consciousness  would  be 
utterly  delusive,  and  reason  would  lose  all  authority.  The 
ground  and  bond  of  all  our  mental  movements  would  be  no 
inner  order  and  life  of  reason,  but  solely  certain  physical 
changes.  But  no  theory  can  be  allowed  which  breaks  down 
all  theories,  itself  among  the  rest.  Suicide  is  never  an  inter- 
esting process,  even  in  speculation.  We  must,  then,  allow  the 
mind  the  power  of  continuing  and  controlling  the  mental 
series  beyond  the  limits  of  sensation  according  to  its  own 
laws  and  without  any  compulsion  from  the  physical  world. 
Nor  is  this  necessity  of  theory  opposed  to  knowledge.  On 
the  contrary,  all  the  facts  of  consciousness  support  it.  In 
the  previous  paragraph  we  have  seen  that,  even  in  sensation, 
the  mind's  power  of  self-determination  appears  as  modify- 
ing even  the  sensational  outcome  of  nervous  excitation; 
while  no  known  facts  whatever  point  to  any  physical  ante- 
cedents which  necessarily  lead  to  reasoning  and  reflection. 

Allowing  this,  however,  our  question  remains  unanswered. 
Suppose  the  mind  can  initiate  a  mental  series,  is  such  a  se- 


422  METAPHYSICS. 

ries  in  the  mind  attended  bj  a  specific  and  peculiar  series  in 
the  brain  which  would  be  impossible  with  any  other  train 
of  thought?  The  materialists  are  compelled  to  answer  in 
the  affirmative ;  for  if  thoughts  are  physical  products,  iden- 
tical physical  states  could  not  produce  unlike  thoughts. 
Accordingly  many  of  them  have  feigned  that  for  every  idea 
there  is  a  corresponding  nerve-vesicle,  while  many  others 
prefer  to  teach  that  for  each  idea  and  feeling  there  is  a 
corresponding  nervous  vibration.  But  these  fancies  are 
only  deductions  from  their  theory,  and  are  in  no  sense  indi- 
cations of  facts.  The  materialist  knows  that  it  is  so,  because 
it  must  be  so.  As  thus  deduced,  the  conclusion  will  have  no 
weight  with  those  who  reject  the  theory.  For  all  but  ma- 
terialists, the  doctrine  in  question  must  be  highly  improba- 
ble. When  we  remember  the  multiplicity  of  our  thoughts 
and  feelings,  and  the  boundless  variety  of  shading  in  both, 
it  becomes  highly  incredible  that  there  is  a  specific  and  pe- 
culiar nervous  state  for  each.  To  this  we  must  add  that 
the  theory  must  affirm  a  specific  state  for  all  possible  thoughts 
and  feelings,  as  well.  The  materialist  is  led  to  overlook  this 
complexity  by  the  fancy  that  thought  and  feeling  in  gen- 
eral are  all  that  needs  explanation ;  whereas  thought  and 
feeling  are  nothing  but  general  terms,  of  which  the  reality 
is  always  a  specific  thought  about  some  specific  thing,  or  a 
specific  feeling  in  specific  relations.  When  this  is  remem- 
bered, we  can  hardly  help  agreeing  with  those  who  declare 
that  matter  in  the  brain  does  not  admit  of  so  many  combi- 
nations. Prof.  Newcomb,  for  example,  insists  that  the  com- 
plexity of  the  problem  is  such  as  to  be  insoluble  by  material 
combination.  However  this  may  be,  we  have  to  admit  that 
the  mind  can  carry  on  a  series  in  itself  without  being  de- 
termined from  without ;  and  hence  it  is  quite  gratuitous  to 
feign  that  that  inner  series  which  is  undetermined  by  the 
physical  world  must  still  have  an  exact  representation  and 
equivalent  in  the  physical  world.  The  fancy  is  born  of  mate- 
rialism, and  its  reason  ceases  when  materialism  is  abandoned. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  423 

But  it  may  be  urged  that  mental  action,  even  in  its  highest 
and  most  abstract  forms,  is  attended  with  nervous  action. 
Even  the  mathematician  and  the  philosopher  cannot  thinkhard 
and  long  without  finding  that  the  brain  takes  part  even  in 
their  abstruse  and  immaterial  reflections.  Even  in  prayer 
and  devotion  the  brain  has  its  part  to  play.  In  these  cases 
we  may  allow  that  the  mind  begins  the  series,  but  that  series 
is  certainly  represented  on  the  physical  side.  How,  then, 
can  it  seem  absurd  to  say  that  for  every  thought  and  feeling 
there  is  a  definite  physical  state,  either  as  cause  or  as  effect  ? 
To  this  the  answer  is,  that  there  is  a  great  difference  between 
saying  that  nervous  action  in  general  is  necessary  to  mental 
activity  in  general,  and  saying  that  each  specific  mental  act 
is  attended  by  a  peculiar  form  of  nervous  action.  The  same 
physical  energy  may  be  expended  in  a  multitude  of  ways, 
according  to  the  will  of  the  engineer.  It  is  equally  possible 
to  regard  nervous  action  as  merely  furnishing  the  general 
conditions  of  mental  activity,  while  the  specific  forms  of  the 
activity  depend  on  the  mind  itself.  This  view  is  all-suffi- 
cient to  cover  the  facts,  and  escapes  the  gratuitous  difficulties 
of  the  other.  Only  materialism  and  fatalism  can  find  it  in- 
adequate ;  and  as  they  both  result  in  the  destruction  of  all 
theory,  we  cannot  allow  their  scruples  any  weight.  We  con- 
clude, then,  that  in  sensation  there  is  a  corresponding  phys- 
ical state  for  the  mental  state,  and  that  from  either  mem- 
ber of  the  interaction  the  other  member  can  be  affirmed  un- 
der normal  conditions.  But  when  we  pass  beyond  sensa- 
tion this  correspondence  ceases.  Then  the  mental  series  is 
a  product  of  the  mind  itself,  and  is  determined  only  from 
within.  The  physical  fact  in  this  case  is  only  that  nervous 
action  in  general  which  is  the  physical  condition  of  mental 
activity  in  general.  If,  however,  any  one  thinks  it  possible 
and  desirable  to  find  in  a  few  cubic  inches  of  brain-matter  a 
specific  physical  state  for  every  shade  and  object  of  thought 
and  feeling,  real  and  possible,  there  is  no  law  against  it.  A 
faith  so  serene  cannot  fail  to  be  a  law  unto  itself. 


42±  METAPHYSICS. 

For  the  production  of  sensations,  external  action  is  neces- 
sary ;  but  when  they  are  produced,  they  come  under  mental 
laws  which  find  no  proper  analogy  in  the  physical  world. 
In  particular,  they  admit  of  reproduction  and  of  combination 
among  themselves.  When  a  sensation  has  been  experienced, 
it  can  be  brought  back  without  the  presence  of  the  object 
which  first  caused  it.  Again,  when  a  group  of  sensations, 
abc,  has  been  present  in  consciousness,  the  presence  of  any 
member  of  that  group  at  a  later  period  will  tend  to  repro- 
duce the  others.  Thus  the  odor  of  an  orange  will  cause  the 
mind  to  reproduce  the  color,  form,  flavor,  etc.  The  qualities 
of  visible  things  are  learned  through  various  senses;  and 
yet  so  fixed  is  this  association  of  the  several  qualities,  that 
any  one  sense  often  seems  to  reveal  the  entire  thing ;  where- 
as, in  fact,  it  can  never  do  more  than  reveal  the  quality  ap- 
propriate to  itself.  This  vicarious  action  of  the  senses, 
which  is  of  the  greatest  practical  significance,  is  due  to  asso- 
ciation and  suggestion. 

Now  this  general  power  of  reproducing  the  past  is  essen- 
tial to  any  rational  life.  Without  it,  we  could  learn  noth- 
ing from  experience,  and  consciousness  would  perish  as  fast  as 
born.  Great  efforts  have  been  made  to  explain  this  power, 
but  without  success.  Some  have  made  the  brain  the  regis- 
ter of  the  past,  and  the  sole  cause  of  reproduction.  So  far 
as  this  view  is  materialistically  held,  and  the  brain  is  made 
the  only  source  and  ground  of  mental  movement,  we  have 
rejected  it  along  with  materialism  itself.  But  the  spiritual- 
ist also  may  hold  that  every  experience  leaves  a  trace  in  the 
brain,  and  that  thus  the  brain  becomes  a  record  of  the  past. 
But,  to  maintain  this  view,  we  must  assume  that  every 
mental  state  has  a  corresponding  physical  state  which  is  rel- 
atively permanent  in  the  brain.  This  assumption  we  have 
seen  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  incredible.  Moreover,  the 
suggestion  of  the  past  is  by  no  means  the  outcome  of  physical 
experience  only.  If  it  were,  it  might  be  claimed  that  the 
excited  nerve  in  such  cases  diffuses  its  disturbance  through 


THE   PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  425 

the  brain,  exciting  other  related  nerve-groups,  and  thus  re- 
produces the  past.  To  be  sure,  the  entire  process  lies  below 
the  microscopic  limit,  and  is  known  only  by  hypothesis. 
Nor  is  it  known  very  clearly  even  by  hypothesis.  How 
these  clusters  exist  in  the  brain  ;  how  they  are  related ;  how 
they  are  formed ;  how  an  orderly  mental  life  could  exist  on 
the  theory — these  are  questions  largely  uaconsidered,  and 
to  which  only  imaginative  answers  are  given.  Figures  of 
speech  are  mistaken  for  facts,  and  the  implications  of  a  trope 
pass  for  science.  These  difficulties  would  exist  even  if  all 
suggestion  were  due  to  present  physical  experience.  But 
the  most  of  suggestion  arises  in  the  movement  of  thought 
itself;  and  here  there  can  be  no  reference  to  an  excited 
nerve,  for  there  is  no  particular  nerve  excited.  The  move- 
ment and  the  association  are  in  the  mind,  and  have  no  as- 
signable equivalent  in  the  brain.  Finally,  this  cerebral  view 
fails  to  notice  the  most  characteristic  feature  of  representa- 
tive knowledge,  recognition.  If  we  suppose  a  brain-mole- 
cule representing  a  certain  idea  to  be  thrown  into  vibration, 
the  utmost  that  could  result  would  be  the  reappearance  of 
the  idea.  Memory  and  recognition  would  be  totally  lacking. 
This  the  mind  must  do  for  itself.  By  its  own  activity  the 
mind  must  locate  the  experience  in  the  past ;  and  until  this 
is  done,  reproduction  is  not  complete.  Hence  the  cerebral 
theory  is  helpless  until  we  posit  an  order  of  association  and 
a  power  of  memory  in  the  mind  itself;  and  when  this  is 
done  the  cerebral  theory  becomes  superfluous. 

What  makes  this  theory  so  amazingly  clear  is  the  influ- 
ence of  the  metaphor  employed.  When  the  brain  is  called 
a  register  of  the  past,  it  is  inevitable  that  we  think  either  of 
writing  or  of  pictures  on  the  brain.  Under  the  influence 
of  this  imagination  we  forthwith  fancy  ourselves  reading 
off  the  writing  or  looking  at  the  pictures,  and  all  is  plain. 
The  only  direct  function  of  the  brain  in  memory  is  to  be 
found  in  the  recall  of  physical  states.  We  have  already 
said  that  sensations  can  be  reproduced,  but  it  is  plain  that 


426  METAPHYSICS. 

the  reproduced  sensations  ai'e  very  different  from  the  orig- 
inal ones.  We  can  recall  a  pain,  but  there  is  the  remarka- 
ble difference  that  the  remembered  pain  does  not  ache.  Ee- 
membered  sensations,  in  general,  are  unattended  by  feeling. 
As  such  they  are  so  thin  and  bloodless  that  it  is  hard  to  put 
any  content  into  them,  or  to  distinguish  them  from  mere 
words,  "whose  significance  we  understand,  but  cannot  truly 
represent  to  ourselves.  In  the  reproduction  of  such  states 
the  body  may  take  a  part,  not  in  the  way  of  directly  recall- 
ing them,  but  as  a  kind  of  sounding-board,  which  gives  a 
volume  to  the  recollections  which  otherwise  they  would  not 
have.  Since  the  interaction  of  body  and  soul  must  be  mut- 
ual, we  may  suppose  that  the  reproduction  of  a  sensation 
by  the  mind  would  tend  to  reproduce  the  corresponding 
nervous  state  in  the  brain,  and  in  that  case  the  nervous 
state  would  react  upon  the  sensation,  and  give  it  greater 
body  than  it  would  have  of  itself.  Indeed,  there  is  no  other 
way  of  explaining  the  so-called  subjective  sensations.  In- 
tense belief  or  expectation  throws  the  nervous  system  into 
the  corresponding  state,  and  the  result  is  a  sensation  of  a 
high  degree  of  intensity.  In  general,  however,  the  result 
is  not  so  marked.  In  attempting  to  reproduce  sensations 
we  notice  a  nascent,  but  very  slight,  affection  of  the  organ- 
ism. But  the  function  of  the  brain  in  this  case  is  not  to 
reproduce  the  sensation,  but  to  give  it  a  body  when  repro- 
duced. When  we  come  to  the  higher  activities  of  the  mind, 
we  find  the  body  taking  no  direct  part  in  reproduction  be- 
yond that  general  significance  which  the  physical  condition 
has  at  all  times  for  mental  action.  We  also  find  reproduction 
of  thoughts  far  more  perfect  than  that  of  sensations,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  the  thought  is  purely  a  mental  act,  while 
the  sensation  needs  the  co-operation  of  the  body  for  its 
proper  existence. 

A  physical  explanation  of  reproduction  cannot  be  found ; 
a  mental  explanation  is  equally  impossible.  Here,  too,  met- 
aphors have  committed  great  ravages.  Experience  is  spoken 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  427 

of  as  leaving  traces  or  residua  in, the  soul,  whereby  it  may 
be  recovered.  A  multitude  of  latent  mental  modifications 
are  also  assumed,  each  of  which  represents  some  experience. 
These  are  further  supposed  to  interact,  and  by  opposing  or 
re-enforcing  one  another  to  exclude  one  another  from  con- 
sciousness, or  to  reproduce  the  past  in  consciousness.  These 
modifications  are  next  pictured,  and  the  process  is  under- 
stood. Hamilton  even  went  so  far  as  to  invent  a  conserva- 
tive faculty  for  the  preservation  of  our  knowledge  when  out 
of  consciousness.  This  knowledge  is  supposed  to  exist  in  a 
latent  state,  and  hence  to  need  a  guardian  to  look  after  it. 
These  views  are  mainly  products  of  the  imagination,  and 
derive  their  clearness  from  the  metaphors  employed.  When, 
however,  we  see  that  the  soul  and  its  states  are  forever  un- 
picturable,  it  is  hard  to  attach  any  meaning  to  the  terms 
used.  The  fact  is  this :  The  soul,  in  distinction  from  what 
we  commonly  assume  to  be  true  of  the  physical  elements,  is 
not  indifferent  to  its  past.  We  assume  that  the  history  of 
an  atom  has  left  no  trace  in  the  atom  itself,  but  that  the 
same  element,  under  the  same  circumstances,  will  be  and  do 
the  same.  This  is  not  the  case  with  the  soul.  Its  past  ex- 
perience has  so  modified  it  that  the  effect  of  any  new  exci- 
tation will  depend  very  largely  upon  what  the  soul  has  been. 
This  fact  we  are  tempted  to  represent  by  traces  left  in  the 
substance  of  the  soul,  or  by  modifications  of  the  substance. 
Both  expressions  are  allied  to  the  imagination,  and  rarely 
fail  to  mislead.  For  us  the  soul  has  no  substance,  but  is  an 
agent ;  and  a  modification  of  the  substance  means  only  a 
modification  of  this  activity.  The  soul  is  perpetually  be- 
coming something  else;  and,  conceived  as  substance,  it 
changes  through  and  through.  But,  as  it  thus  moves  on,  it 
carries  its  past  with  it ;  not,  however,  in  the  form  of  latent 
modifications,  but  solely  in  the  power  of  reproducing  that 
past  in  consciousness.  Our  possession  of  a  knowledge  of 
which  we  are  not  conscious  means  only  that  we  can  repro- 
duce that  knowledge  upon  occasion.  In  no  other  sense  is 


428  METAPHYSICS. 

past  experience  latent  within  us.    This  power  of  reproduc- 
tion is  the  deepest  fact,  and  admits  of  no  deduction. 

But  the  power  of  reproduction,  in  general,  does  not  ac- 
count for  the  particular  order  of  reproduction,  or  the  pecul- 
iar order  in  which  a  present  experience  suggests  a  special 
past  experience.     This  order  also  admits  of  no  deduction, 
but  only  of  description.     No  one  can  find  any  reason  in  the 
nature  of  the  ideas  themselves  why  they  must  suggest  and 
recall  one  another  as  they  do.     An  elaborate  mathematical 
treatment  of  this  subject  has  been  attempted  by  Herbart, 
in  which,  for  the  most  part,  he  falls  a  prey  to  his  own  terms. 
Having  decided  that  a  mental  affection  must  have  a  certain 
intensity  in  order  to  rise  into  consciousness,  and  having  fur- 
ther decided  to  call  this  intensity  the  threshold  of  conscious- 
ness, and  having  endowed  the  mental  states  with  mutual 
attractions  and  repulsions,  he  had  all  the  conditions  for  an 
elaborate  psychological  mythology.    This  doctrine  could  not 
but  be  imposing  when  expressed  in  mathematical  series,  and 
especially  when  illustrated  by  woodcuts  of  rising  and  fall- 
ing and  intersecting  curves.     But  the  mythical  character  of 
the  performance  is  now  pretty  generally  recognized.     In 
particular,  the  dynamic  opposition  between  ideas  upon  which 
the  theory  rests  is  seen  to  be  a  pure  fiction.     The  persist- 
ence of  an  idea  in  consciousness,  or  its  return  to  conscious- 
ness, is  in  no  sense  due  to  any  extraordinary  force  in  that 
idea,  but  solely  to  the  superior  interest  or  value  which  it 
happens  to  have  for  us.     All  other  attempts  to  deduce  the 
order  of  association  are  equally  unsuccessful.     All  that  can 
be  done  is  to  describe  the  process  of  reproduction.     The 
laws  reached  will  be  only  descriptions  of  the  process ;  in  no 
case  will  they  give  any  insight  into  its  inner  nature.     That 
even  this  work  has  not  yet  been  done  appears  from  the  fact 
that  the  laws  of  association  are  variously  given  as  from  one 
to  seven,  according  to  the  taste  of  the  speculator.     Indeed, 
it  is  an  abuse  of  language  to  call  such  indefinite  rules  laws, 
for  the  term  law  implies  universality,  and  often  some  ra- 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  429 

tional  ground  of  connection,  which  is  not  the  case  with  the 
laws  of  association.  But  this  work  we  leave  to  descriptive 
psychology.  It  was  necessary  for  us  to  refer  to  the  fact  of 
reproduction  and  its  general  significance,  but  we  have  no 
interest  at  present  in  the  details  of  the  process.  Our  con- 
clusion is  that  neither  memory  nor  association  admits  of  any 
deduction,  and  still  less  of  any  materialistic  construction. 

Thus  far  we  have  dealt  only  with  sensations  and  their 
grouping  and  reproduction,  we  pass  now  to  the  constructive 
action  of  the  mind.  Just  as  the  nervous  motions  are  the 
incitements  which  cause  the  mind  to  react  with  sensation, 
so  sensations  are  the  incitements  which  cause  the  mind  to 
unfold  a  higher  constructive  activity.  This  is  the  thought- 
activity,  and  means  the  entire  process  by  which  the  mind 
works  over  the  data  of  sensation,  and  gives  them  meaning 
and  rational  system.  The  investigation  of  the  laws  and 
principles  of  this  activity  belongs  to  logic.  We  consider 
them  here  only  in  a  general  way,  and  without  pretending 
to  an  exhaustive  discussion.  We  aim  only  to  make  out  that 
there  is  such  a  thought-activity,  distinct  from  simple  sensi- 
bility, and  that  its  laws  are  contained  within  itself.  If  this 
be  proved,  the  results  for  perception  are  important. 

The  sensationalists  in  general  are  unwilling  to  admit  that 
there  is  any  specific  thought-activity,  and  claim  to  deduce  all 
that  is  found  in  the  mind  from  simple  sensation  and  associ- 
ation. Volition  they  largely  view  as  a  form  of  reflex  action. 
So  far  as  this  view  is  materialistic,  and  regards  the  mind  as 
merely  the  sum  of  its  sensations,  we  have  rejected  it  in  ad- 
vance. We  have  been  forced  to  view  the  mind  as  a  true  sub- 
ject, with  a  proper  nature  of  its  own,  and  hence  the  only  sen- 
sationalism which  has  any  claim  to  be  considered  is  that  which 
views  the  mental  nature  as  exhausted  in  the  possibility  and 
the  laws  of  sensation.  The  mind  receives  sensations  from 
the  outer  world,  and  these  associate  according  to  certain  laws 
of  contiguity,  likeness,  etc.  In  this  way  our  mental  life  is 


430  METAPHYSICS. 

explained,  without  assuming  any  power  in  the  mind  beyond 
a  susceptibility  to  sensation.     This  theory  has  always  seemed 
plausible  to  the  uncritical  mind,  owing  to  the  apparent  im- 
mediateness  of  knowledge.     In  sensation,  the  mind  comes 
in  direct  contact  with  things,  and  sees  them  as  they  are. 
Its  sensations,  further,  seem  to  be  distinct  copies  of  things, 
and  to  give  the  true  properties  of  things.     The  notions  of 
thing,  property,  and  extension,  are  given  directlj7  in  sensa- 
tion, and  hence  we  need  not  posit  anything  beyond  sensa- 
tion.    But,  in  this  uncritical  fancy,  sensation  is  confound- 
ed with  perception,  and  the  possibility  of  perception  is  left 
unexplained.     Accordingly,  the  products  of  sense -percep- 
tion, which  are  reached  only  through  the  application  of  the 
categories  to  sensation,  are  mistaken  for  the  basal  fact,  and 
then  the  deduction  of  the  categories  from  things  into  which 
they  have  before  been  put  is  mistaken  for  a  deduction  of 
the  categories  from  experience.     But  this  fancy  perishes 
when  we  recognize  the  complete  unlikeness  to  the  alleged 
object  both  of  the  nervous  sign  and  of  the  sensation.     This 
makes  it  absolutely  necessary  that  there  shall  be  some  sub- 
ject which  shall  read  back  these  signs  into  their  meaning. 
The  form  of  the  resulting  knowledge  can  be  nothing  but  an 
expression  of  the  nature  of  the  knowing  mind.     On  the  ide- 
alistic theory,  which  makes  the  world-vision  in  general  as 
subjective  as  light  and  sound,  this  necessity  is  palpable. 
On  that  theory,  the  world-vision  is  the  product  of  the  mind, 
and  resembles  nothing  which  can  exist  apart  from  mind. 
But,  on  the  realistic  theory,  the  same  necessity  is  equally 
apparent  to  the  reflecting  mind.     The  object  is  not  in  con- 
tact with  the  mind,  nor  is  anything  like  the  object  in  con- 
tact with  the  mind.     The  vibration  of  the  optic  nerve  has 
nothing  in  it  resembling  the  thought  of  the  sun  millions 
of  miles  away.     K"or  has  the  simple  sensation  of  light  any- 
thing resembling  such  a  thought.     To  turn  them  into  such 
a  perception,  the  mind  must  apply  to  the  sensation  its  cate- 
gories of  substance  and  attribute  and  of  space  and  distance. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  431 

Through  their  application  the  sensation  becomes  the  signal 
of  a  thing  regarded  as  external,  and  as  the  cause  of  the  sen- 
sation. The  thing  is,  further,  located  at  a  distance  and  in 
space.  This  work  of  interpretation  and  location  is,  and 
must  be,  the  work  of  the  mind,  and  without  it  we  cannot 
advance  one  step  beyond  sensation,  and  hence  can  never 
reach  an  objective  world  of  any  sort. 

A  general  difficulty  with  the  sensationalist's  theory  of 
perception  is,  that  he  seldom  attains  to  a  clear  conscious- 
ness of  his  own  aim.  It  rarely  occurs  to  him  to  decide 
whether  he  is  trying  to  explain  a  valid  knowledge  of  a  real 
world,  or  only  the  dream  of  a  world  which  has  no  substan- 
tial existence.  Most  sensationalists  begin  by  assuming  the 
common-sense  conception  of  a  world  of  real  things  to  be 
valid,  as  if  the  only  problem  were  to  show  how  this  con- 
stant external  order,  by  producing  sensations  in  the  mind, 
must  at  last  produce  a  valid  knowledge  of  itself.  It  never 
occurs  to  them  that  the  validity  of  this  common-sense  con- 
ception is  one  of  the  great  battle-grounds  of  philosophy,  and 
that  their  own  theory  of  knowledge  has  been  shown  again 
and  again  to  be  incompatible  with  that  conception.  These 
are  points  undreamed  of ;  and  if,  by  any  chance,  they  should 
ever  be  brought  up,  they  would  be  dismissed  by  a  reference 
to  common-sense.  Common-sense,  which  is  always  pleased 
to  be  noticed,  would  forthwith  take  the  sensationalists  un- 
der its  pachydermatous  protection,  and  philosophy  would  be 
unspeakably  advanced.  But,  since  the  time  of  Hume,  it  is 
needless  to  show  that  a  pure  sensationalism  can  never  attain 
to  a  knowledge  of  a  real  world,  but  can  only  affirm  a  per- 
fectly baseless  becoming,  in  which  no  phenomenon  condi- 
tions any  other.  Hume  showed,  once  for  all,  that  the  law 
of  causation  and  the  reality  and  continuity  of  being  must 
disappear  from  a  logical  sensationalism,  and  that  nothing 
remains  but  groundless  and  discontinuous  sensations.  These 
are  simply  affections  of  our  sensibility,  and  there  is  no  rea- 
son why  they  come  or  go.  Objective  being  is  a  bundle  of 


432  METAPHYSICS. 

qualities,  and  subjective  being  is  ail  aggregate  of  mental 
states.  But,  with  this  result,  the  objective  world  disappears 
altogether.  For  the  qualities  of  which  the  world  exists  are, 
after  all,  only  mental  states,  and  have  no  existence  apart 
from  our  sensibility.  An  attempt  has  been  made  to  modify 
this  result  by  speaking  of  permanent  possibilities  of  sensa- 
tion; but  a  possibility  is  nothing,  unless  founded  in  some- 
thing. A  possibility  itself  is  simply  a  conception,  and  is, 
withal,  one  of  the  most  unpicturable  notions  we  possess. 
The  phrase  is  simply  an  echo  of  the  worst  errors  of  scholas- 
ticism ;  and  when  these  permanent  possibilities  are  next  in- 
troduced as  the  cause  of  the  actual  sensation,  as  is  done  by 
Mill  in  his  psychological  theory  of  the  belief  in  an  external 
world,  there  is  no  lower  depth  of  confusion  and  unintelligi- 
bility.  What  a  permanent  possibility  may  mean,  which  is 
not  founded  in  some  real  thing,  defies  all  understanding; 
but  how  this  background  of  possible  sensations  can  be  viewed 
as  the  cause  of  the  actual  sensation — that  is,  how  the  possi- 
bility of  an  odor  and  a  flavor  can  be  the  cause  of  the  yel- 
low color  of  an  orange — is  probably  unknowable,  except  to 
a  mind  which  can  see  that  two  and  two  may  make  five. 
Finally,  since  everything  is  groundless  and  causation  is  ex- 
ploded, the  suggestion  that  sensations  have  a  cause  of  any 
sort  is  causeless  inconsistency.  We  conclude,  then,  that  sen- 
sationalism is  untenable  as  a  theory  of  perception,  so  long  as 
the  object  is  assumed  to  have  any  reality  or  any  ground  in 
reality.  We  have  next  to  inquire  whether,  apart  from  any 
question  as  to  external  reality,  the  mental  work  involved  in 
knowledge  does  not  imply  an  activity  above  any  possible 
product  of  sensibility  and  association. 

The  demand  for  an  activity  beyond  and  above  sensation 
is  justified  by  the  plainest  facts  of  experience.  Knowledge 
depends  upon  distinction  and  relation.  Even  our  knowledge 
of  sensation  depends  upon  a  discriminating  and  relating  ac- 
tivity of  the  mind.  The  mere  experience  of  a  sensation  as 
a  mental  state  is  by  no  means  identical  with  our  knowledge 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  433 

of  the  sensation.  The  sensationalists  have  generally  denied 
this,  and  have  claimed  that  to  have  a  sensation  and  to  know 
the  sensation  are  identical.  Here  is  the  weakest  point  of 
their  psychological  analysis,  and  one  great  source  of  their 
aberrations.  For  a  sensation  as  a  state  of  feeling  is  by  no 
means  necessarily  a  mental  object.  Before  it  can  become 
such,  the  mind  must  at  least  discriminate  it  from  itself  as  its 
own  state.  The  rational  life  involves  the  conscious  distinc- 
tion of  subject  and  object,  and  the  simply  sensitive  life  does 
not  provide  this  distinction.  But  however  this  may  be,  our 
knowledge  of  sensation  is  not  exhausted  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  individual  feeling.  The  most  of  our  knowledge  of 
sensations  is  a  knowledge  of  them  in  their  relations  to  one 
another;  and  as  such  it  plainly  depends  on  discrimination 
and  comparison.  Indeed,  no  sensation  becomes  a  distinct 
object  of  knowledge  until  it  is  classified  and  related ;  and  in 
order  to  this,  it  must  be  discriminated  from  the  unlike  and 
assimilated  to  the  like.  It  is  here  we  find  the  peculiar  sig- 
nificance of  attention  which  many  would  erect  into  a  special 
faculty.  Attention  by  no  means  consists  in  staring  at  the 
simple  content  of  a  sensation,  but  is  an  act  of  discrimination 
and  relation.  We  attend  to  minute  shades  of  likeness  and 
unlikeness,  and  thus  constitute  our  mental  object.  Until  this 
is  done,  we  have  a  feeling  without  definite  content,  and  one 
to  which  we  can  give  no  definite  place  in  our  mental  system. 
But  this  act  of  discrimination  is  not  a  fact  of  sensation,  but 
an  act  upon  sensation.  The  sensationalist  relies  upon  the 
association  of  ideas  to  do  this  work.  This  principle  is  sup- 
posed to  assimilate  like  sensations  with  like,  and  thus  to  dis- 
criminate them  from  the  unlike.  But,  apart  from  the  fact 
that  the  work  here  attributed  to  association  is  largely  imag- 
inary, the  root  of  the  matter  is  not  reached.  The  mere  co- 
existence of  like  and  unlike  states  does  not  account  for  our 
experience  of  them  as  such.  In  themselves  they  are  the 
classifiable  rather  than  the  classified,  the  distinguishable 
rather  than  the  distinguished.  Likeness  or  unlikeness  in 
23 


434:  METAPHYSICS. 

experience  is  by  no  means  the  same  as  an  experience  of  like- 
ness or  unlikeness.  For  this  it  is  necessary  that  the  subject 
of  the  two  experiences  shall  distinguish  and  compare  them, 
and,  by  noting  its  own  state  in  the  two  experiences,  discover 
the  likeness  or  the  unlikeness.  Here,  then,  in  these  simplest 
experiences,  we  discover  an  activity  of  which  simple  sensi- 
bility and  association  give  no  account. 

Again,  when  we  view  a  complex  but  unfamiliar  object, 
the  same  fact  appears.  We  have  a  complete  sensation,  but 
we  cannot  tell  what  we  have  seen,  owing  to  the  failure  to 
establish  relations  among  its  elements.  Or  when  we  look  at 
a  large  number  of  objects,  or  a  figure  with  many  sides,  we 
have  the  same  result.  The  sensation  is  perfect,  but  knowl- 
edge is  lacking.  Nor  is  knowledge  possible  until  the  mind 
has  reacted  upon  the  sensation,  and,  by  a  process  of  counting 
and  construction,  mastered  its  significance.  Doubtless  the 
sensation  connected  with  the  vision  of  a  decagon  is  as  dis- 
tinct as  that  connected  with  the  vision  of  a  triangle ;  but 
not  until  we  have  counted  do  we  know  that  it  is  a  decagon. 
In  the  case  of  the  triangle,  the  construction  is  so  brief  and 
rapid  that  we  fail  to  notice  it ;  but  in  every  complex  figure 
the  process  is  manifest.  These  facts  cancel  the  attempt  to 
identify  sensation  with  our  knowledge  of  sensation.  The 
determination  of  relations,  which  is  essential  to  all  knowl- 
edge, is  an  act  of  judgment,  and  not  a  passive  experience  of 
the  mind.  Of  course,  these  relations  could  not  be  deter- 
mined unless  the  sensations  were  in  themselves  relatable 
and  classifiable ;  but  none  the  less  is  the  relating  act,  or  the 
recognition  of  these  relations,  something  over  and  above 
sensibility.  Hence  we  see  in  sensation  itself  a  higher  activ- 
ity of  judgment  coming  in  to  make  our  knowledge  possible. 

A  still  higher  form  of  this  activity  appears  in  that  trans- 
formation and  interpretation  of  sensations  which  constitutes 
perception.  When  we  see  any  object,  we  are  not  content 
to  view  it  simply  as  a  clump  of  sensations,  although  it  can 
never  be  anything  more  for  our  sensibility.  All  we  can 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  435 

experience  from  it  is  certain  affections  of  ourself ;  and  there 
can  never  be  the  slightest  reason  on  the  sensational  theory 
for  distinguishing  the  object  as  something  external  to  our- 
selves. But  this  only  proves  the  doctrine  untenable ;  for 
while  to  our  sensibility  the  object  is  only  a  clump  of  sensa- 
tions in  the  mind,  to  our  thought  it  is  more.  It  retreats 
behind  its  apparent  qualities  as  their  possessor  and  cause, 
and  as  having  an  existence  and  reality  of  its  own.  This 
substantive  and  causal  notion,  whereby  the  mind  seeks  to 
justify  and  rationalize  its  sense-experience,  is  not  contained 
in  sensation,  but  is  the  rational  form  which  the  mind  con- 
tributes to  sensation.  It  is  indifferent  to  the  present  inquiry 
whether  the  idea  represents  anything  external  or  not;  it 
does  exist  as  a  mental  principle,  and  as  such  is  fundamental. 
If  we  cancel  it,  our  entire  thought-system  collapses.  If  we 
deny  it  in  reality,  all  the  more  must  we  affirm  it  as  a  mental 
principle.  If  we  affirm  it  in  externality,  we  can  do  it  only 
on  the  warrant  of  the  mind.  In  either  case  it  is  a  mental 
principle.  If  there  were  a  being  capable  of  having  sensa- 
tions and  of  associating  them  as  experienced,  but  incapable 
of  any  higher  activity  upon  them,  it  would  never  reach  the 
notion  of  cause  and  substance  at  all.  No  more  would  it 
reach  the  notion  of  quality.  The  noun,  the  adjective,  and 
the  verb  would  all  alike  be  non-existent.  But  such  a  mind 
in  connection  with  a  fitting  body  would  be  able  to  lead  a 
sentient  life,  and  to  care  for  itself  in  many  respects  as  well 
as  a  rational  being.  Possibly  the  animals  lead  a  life  of  this 
sort,  purely  sentient  and  without  rationality.  At  all  events, 
it  is  beyond  doubt  that  a  mind  without  an  inner  necessity 
of  rationalizing  its  sensations  would  never  reach  the  con- 
ception of  cause  and  substance,  no  matter  how  real  the  outer 
world  might  be.  Sensation  in  a  purely  sentient  being  would 
be  merely  a  state  of  the  being;  but  sensation  in  a  rational 
being  becomes  the  occasion  of  a  rational  construction  result- 
ing in  knowledge.  The  reality  of  being  and  causation  can 
be  assured  only  by  reason.  All  attempts  to  deduce  them 


436  METAPHYSICS. 

from  causation  have  ended  either  in  nihilism  or  in  calling 
something  else  by  their  name. 

Besides  these  categories,  the  most  prominent  category  in 
external  perception  is  that  of  space,  with  its  sub-categories 
of  extension  and  distance ;  and  around  these  some  of  the 
hottest  contests  between  the  sensationalist  and  the  intuition- 
ist  have  raged.  The  sensationalist  insists  that  space  is  no 
original  mental  principle  which  conditions  intuition,  but 
only  a  product  of  sense-experience.  The  reflective  intui- 
tionist  insists  that  however  real  space  may  be  in  fact,  it  must 
also  exist  as  a  mental  principle  in  order  that  objective  space 
should  ever  be  known.  The  common-sense  philosopher  be- 
lieves that  space  is  real ;  but,  from  a  fear  of  idealism,  he  is 
strongly  averse  to  allowing  mental  forms  and  principles. 
Accordingly,  he  falls  back  on  his  notion  of  immediate 
knowledge,  and  ignores  all  questions. 

The  history  of  philosophy  abounds  in  attempts  to  deduce 
the  idea  of  space.  The  aim  of  these  efforts  has  been  double. 
Some  have  sought  to  show  the  significance  and  necessity  of 
the  space-idea  in  a  rational  scheme,  and  others  have  sought 
to  deduce  the  idea  as  a  product  of  the  sensational  mechan- 
ism. The  Hegelians,  especially,  have  attempted  the  former 
task.  As  Hegel  proposed  to  deduce  everything  from  the 
idea,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  show  that  space  is  a 
necessary  implication  of  the  idea.  The  aim  was  intelligible, 
but  the  execution  was  a  failure.  In  the  Hegelian  philoso- 
phy, space  appears  as  a  discovery  rather  than  a  deduction. 
To  be  sure,  it  is  not  difficult  to  give  space  such  names  and 
functions  as  to  make  it  fit  into  Hegel's  system.  If  we  first 
decide  that  the  idea  must  pass  into  self-opposition,  so  that  it 
becomes  external  to  itself,  it  is  easy  to  call  space  the  form 
of  this  self-externality ;  but  there  is  no  proof  that  the  idea 
demands  just  this  form  and  no  other.  From  this  side,  at 
least,  space  admits  of  no  deduction.  It  is  a  fact  to  be  recog- 
nized, not  deduced. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  437 

The  attempts  to  deduce  the  idea  of  space  as  a  product  of 
sense-experience  have  been  numerous,  and  they  are  more  in 
accordance  with  the  present  drift  of  psychological  specula- 
tion than  the  view  just  mentioned.  Herbart  sought  to  show 
that  any  being  whatever  capable  of  having  presentations 
must  necessarily  develop  space  as  a  mental  form ;  but  his 
success  was  due  to  a  verbal  ambiguity.  The  term  "  together  " 
plays  a  most  important  part  in  his  deduction.  At  the  start, 
this  term  is  to  be  metaphysically  understood ;  but  before  the 
deduction  ends,  it  returns  to  its  natural  spatial  significance, 
and  the  demonstration  is  complete.  When  this  ambiguity 
is  carefully  excluded,  Herbart  ends  where  he  began;  that  is, 
with  a  somewhat  unintelligible  metaphysical  "  together,"  in 
which  there  is  not  the  slightest  trace  of  spatiality. 

The  English  sensationalists  who  have  essayed  the  same 
task  have  never  clearly  decided  what  they  are  trying  to  do. 
It  is  not  clear,  from  what  they  say,  whether  they  regard 
space  and  space-relations  as  real,  or  as  having  only  a  subjec- 
tive existence.  On  this  account,  it  is  also  not  .clear  whether 
they  seek  to  explain  a  knowledge  of  space  as  existing,  or 
only  as  a  peculiar  form  of  mental  illusion.  A  large  part  of 
what  is  said  is  an  attempt  to  explain  our  knowledge  of  space 
as  the  result  of  sense-experience,  without  saying  anything  as 
to  the  reality  of  space.  This  part  is  throughout  a  begging 
of  the  question.  Thus  Mr.  Mill  supposes  "  two  small  bod- 
ies, A  and  B,  sufficiently  near  together  to  admit  of  their  be- 
ing touched  simultaneously,  one  with  the  right  hand,  the 
other  with  the  left."  We  are  then  supposed  to  move  a  hand 
from  A  to  B,  and  to  become  conscious  of  the  muscular  sen- 
sations which  result.  Thus  we  attain  to  the  idea  of  space. 
He  adds :  "  The  sensation  of  muscular  motion  unimpeded 
constitutes  our  notion  of  empty  space ;  and  the  sensation  of 
muscular  motion  impeded  constitutes  that  of  filled  space. 
Space  is  room — room  for  movement."  *  But  throughout  the 

*  "Examination  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  '  Philosophy,' "  vol.  5.,  pp.  2SO,  281. 


433  METAPHYSICS. 

argument  from  which  these  sentences  are  quoted,  Mill  is  not 
sure  whether  muscular  sensations  are  space,  or  only  produce 
the  idea  of  space.  There  is  also  throughout  the  argument 
a  very  free  use  of  space  terms  which  indeed  serve  to  make 
it  intelligible,  but  which  also  make  it  unpleasantly  like  some 
of  the  most  characteristic  utterances  of  that  prince  of  sensa- 
tional philosophers,  Petitio  Principii.  If  the  two  bodies, 
A  and  B,  are  in  space,  and  the  terms  used  imply  that  they 
are,  the  question  is  begged.  To  guard  against  this,  we  must 
carefully  strike  out  all  terms  which  imply  space,  such  as 
movement,  leaving  A  and  passing  to  B ;  for  these  are  ready 
to  mislead  us.  We  must  restrict  ourselves-  to  purely  tem- 
poral sensations,  and  from  them  develop  a  spatial  order. 
We  cannot,  then,  assume  that  A  and  B  coexist  in  space,  for 
this  would  beg  the  question.  Coexistent  sensations,  like  or 
unlike,  are  all  that  is  given.  Hence,  when  we  pass  from  A, 
A  no  longer  exists ;  and  a  return  to  A  can  only  mean  the 
recurrence  of  a  similar  sensation,  and  not  a  return  to  the 
same  object.  The  coexistence  of  unlike  sensations  and  the 
recurrence  of  similar  sensations  are  all  that  is  possible  on 
the  theory.  Anything  more  gets  in  only  by  subreption. 
A  time-order  in  sensation  is  all  that  is  given,  and  we  cannot 
advance  beyond  it  without  some  new  principle.  In  order 
to  break  up  these  sensations  into  fixed  groups  which  shall 
look  like  things,  we  need  the  space-principle  which  we  are 
seeking  to  deduce.  Not  even  those  complexes  of  phenom- 
ena to  which  the  sensationalist  seeks  to  reduce  things  are 
possible  on  his  own  theory.  There  is  nothing  to  do  but  to 
declare  that  the  time-order  of  sensations  is  space.  Thus  the 
deduction  of  the  idea  finally  consists  in  calling  a  certain 
order  of  sensation  space,  and  in  assuring  the  student  that 
space  can  mean  nothing  more.  Unfortunately  for  the  the- 
ory, the  idea  of  space  refuses  to  be  identified  in  any  way 
with  any  kind  or  amount  of  sensation.  It  is  said,  for  exam- 
ple, that  the  declaration  that  A  is  distant  from  B  means  only 
that,  having  the  sensation  A,  a  certain  amount  of  peculiar 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  439 

sensations,  called  sensations  of  movement,  must  intervene  in 
order  to  have  the  sensation  B.  This  and  similar  statements 
describe  a  part  of  the  fact  well  enough,  but  overlook  the 
form  under  which  we  intuite  the  sensations.  It  is  entirely 
possible  that  a  being  should  have  all  the  sensations  accom- 
panying movement  without  any  tendency  to  give  them  a 
spatial  significance ;  and,  conversely,  a  being  which  does  give 
his  sensations  such  a  significance  must  have  an  inherent 
tendency  to  do  so.  The  space-intuition  does  not  alter  the 
character  of  the  sensations,  but  it  gives  them  a  form  which 
does  not  belong  to  them  as  sensations.  It  is  always  possible 
to  describe  the  sense-experience  in  terms  of  sensation,  real 
or  expected ;  but  the  form  which  the  mind  gives  to  its  ex- 
perience defies  such  interpretation. 

The  sensational  theory  has  been  elaborated  at  painful 
length  by  Prof.  Bain,  but  without  adding  anything  to  the 
argument,  and  also  without  escaping  the  tendency  to  beg  the 
question  which  has  always  clung  to  this  school.  Mr.  Walter, 
in  his  work,  "  Perception  of  Space  and  Matter,"  has  made  a 
lengthy  criticism  of  the  sensational  doctrines  of  space,  and 
has  very  clearly  shown  their  inadequacy  or  inconsistency. 
In  the  course  of  time,  psychologists  will  finally  abandon  as 
insoluble  the  question  why  the  soul  must  intuite  its  objects 
under  the  form  of  space.  They  have  long  since  abandoned 
the  attempt  to  explain  why  a  given  nervous  affection  must 
result  in  a  sensation  of  light,  etc.,  and  the  question  in  hand 
is  just  as  insoluble.  The  reason  in  both  cases  must  be  found 
in  the  inscrutable  nature  of  the  soul.  If  it  be  said  that  this 
is  to  abandon  the  problem,  the  answer  is  that  insoluble 
problems  ought  to  be  abandoned.  Circle-squarers  contrib- 
ute nothing  to  mathematics;  and  inventors  of  perpetual 
motors  are  of  little  service  to  practical  mechanics. 

The  sensationalist  view  in  strictness  does  not  include  the 
admission  of  space  as  a  reality,  but  only  its  explanation  as  a 
special  mental  product,  yet  without  allowing  space  as  an 
original  mental  principle.  The  common-sense  school  are 


440  METAPHYSICS. 

equally  averse  from  admitting  space  as  a  mental  principle, 
while  they  insist  with  great  emphasis  on  the  reality  of  space. 
Their  great  appeal  here,  as  elsewhere,  is  to  the  notion  of 
immediate  knowledge.  Others,  too,  who  hold  the  same 
view,  are  led  to  seek  the  distinction  of  a  new  name,  and 
profess  the  "  nativistic"  doctrine  of  space.  But  a  new  name 
may  mean  a  very  old  thing;  and  such  is  the  case  here. 
The  notion  is  that  things  are  really  extended  and  in  space, 
and  that  we  immediately  know  them  to  be  extended,  and 
from  the  immediate  knowledge  of  extension  pass  to  our 
general  conception  of  space.  This  view  distinctly  begs  the 
question  against  those  who  hold  the  phenomenality  of  space. 
We  have  seen  that  extension  can  never  be  viewed  as  a  predi- 
cate of  real  being  without  losing  ourselves  in  the  labyrinth 
of  the  infinite  divisibility  of  matter,  and  thus  making  the 
notion  of  being  an  insoluble  contradiction.  We  have  also 
seen  that  extension  is  predicable  only  of  aggregates,  and  then 
expresses  only  a  certain  order  of  relation  among  the  com- 
ponent elements.  But  aggregates  and  their  relations,  as 
such,  can  exist  only  in  the  aggregating  and  relating  thought. 
We  might,  then,  appeal  to  the  results  of  our  discussion  of 
space,  and  dismiss  this  view  as  both  superficial  and  untena- 
ble. But  we  prefer  another  course  at  this  point,  not  indeed 
as  more  conclusive,  but  as  less  liable  to  arouse  the  antag- 
onism of  uncritical  common-sense.  We  may,  then,  allow  the 
reality  of  space  and  extension  without  in  any  way  dispens- 
ing with  the  need  of  space  as  a  mental  principle,  in  order  to 
make  a  knowledge  of  this  objective  space  possible. 

We  have  frequently  pointed  out  in  the  course  of  this  chap- 
ter that  immediate  knowledge  does  not  dispense  with  a  con- 
structive activity  on  the  part  of  the  soul,  but  is  only  that 
knowledge  which  results  from  the  direct  interaction  of  the 
self  and  the  not-self.  This  not-self,  however,  even  on  the 
realistic  theory,  is  not  the  object  perceived,  but  only  the  ner- 
vous system.  This  system,  moreover,  is  never  directly  known 
in  any  case ;  and  even  now  the  proof  that  the  nerves  are  con- 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  441 

cerned  in  our  knowing  is  a  very  indirect  one.  Underlying 
this  theory  of  common-sense,  there  is  first  an  oversight  of  all 
the  actual  conditions  of  perception,  and  a  kind  of  fancy  that 
the  mind  as  a  sort  of  ethereal  essence  fills  out  the  body,  and 
comes  in  direct  contact  with  the  surface  of  things.  Many 
fancy  that  all  difficulty  is  removed  if  we  regard  the  soul  itself 
as  extended.  "We  have  only  to  think  of  the  soul  as  extended 
to  get  a  clear  insight  into  the  spatial  perception  of  things. 
Some,  indeed,  go  so  far  as  stoutly  to  affirm  that  a  perception 
of  the  extended  by  the  unextended  is  a  contradiction.  A  cu- 
rious whimsey  underlies  this  notion.  It  is  that  the  perceptive 
act  has  the  properties  of  the  things  perceived.  Accordingly, 
the  thought  of  the  extended  must  itself  be  extended.  The 
thought  of  the  sphere  must  be  spherical,  and  the  thought  of 
the  triangle  must  be  three-cornered.  Hence,  of  course,  the 
soul  must  have  a  certain  volume  in  which  to  hold  such 
knowledge  without  letting  the  corners  stick  out.  The 
crudity  of  this  whimsey  renders  criticism  unnecessary.  The 
perceptive  act,  and  the  knowledge  acquired  by  it,  have  none 
of  the  properties  which  belong  to  the  objects  known.  Or  we 
may  say  in  general  that  the  content  of  a  thought  is  not  to 
be  confounded  with  the  thought  considered  as  a  mental  act. 
The  thought  of  space  has  extension  for  its  content,  but  the 
thought  is  not  extended.  The  thought  of  the  heavy  is  not 
heavy,  and  the  thought  of  the  sweet  is  not  sweet.  In  addi- 
tion to  this  whimse}r,  the  claim  that  the  knowledge  of  ex- 
tension is  impossible  to  the  unextended  rests  implicitly  on 
the  assumption  that  the  point  is  the  only  antithesis  of  exten- 
sion ;  whereas  the  point  itself  is  a  space-term,  and  denies 
space  spatially.  In  fact,  thought  is  neither  in  a  point  nor 
out  of  a  point ;  but  is  simply  and  purely  thought,  to  which 
space-predicates  have  no  application.  It  must  be  judged 
and  measured  solely  by  its  own  standards  of  grasp  and  in- 
tensity. 

Again,  if  we  should  allow  the  soul  to  be  extended  as  a 
thing  in  space,  the  problem  is  not  advanced.     Only  the  un- 


442  METAPHYSICS. 

critical  imagination  finds  any  aid  in  such  a  notion.  By 
considering  the  soul  as  an  extended  something,  the  fancy 
finds  it  easy  to  conceive  of  extended  outlines  drawn  upon 
the  soul's  surface,  and  then  it  rests  satisfied.  The  difficulty 
connected  with  the  third  dimension  is  met,  of  course,  by 
viewing  the  soul  as  a  solid  rather  than  a  plane  surface.  This 
is  the  same  notion  which  underlies  the  belief  that  the  pict- 
ure on  the  retina  removes  all  the  mystery  of  vision.  In 
the  latter  case,  we  mistake  our  own  vision  of  the  picture  on 
the  retina  for  a  perception  of  the  object  by  the  mind  back 
of  the  retina.  Similarly  with  the  extended  outlines  on  the 
soul,  we  mistake  our  own  fancied  perception  of  them  on  the 
walls  of  an  objective  soul  for  the  perception  of  them  by  the 
soul  itself.  But  the  problem  is,  not  to  account  for  impres- 
sions on  an  extended  soul,  but  for  the  knowledge  of  space 
in  thought,  and,  however  extended  the  soul  may  be  as  a 
thing,  as  a  knowing  subject  it  has  no  extension,  and  knowl- 
edge has  no  extension.  Space  in  thought  is  no  easier  on 
the  hypothesis  of  an  extended  soul  than  on  any  other. 

The  next  point  to  be  insisted  on  is  one  with  which  we  are 
already  familiar.  The  mere  existence  of  a  thing,  we  have 
said,  does  not  explain  its  perception.  This  implies  the  fur- 
ther statement  that  the  existence  of  a  thing  as  such  or  such 
does  not  explain  its  perception  as  such  or  such.  To  per- 
ceive a  thing,  it  must  act  upon  us ;  and  to  perceive  a  thing 
as  this  or  that,  it  must  act  in  a  manner  corresponding  there- 
to. But  space  itself  does  not  act  upon  us ;  only  things  act. 
Hence,  our  knowledge  of  space  must  be  gathered  from  the 
activities  of  things.  But  these  activities  themselves  have 
no  spatial  properties.  They  vary  in  intensity  and  duration, 
but  they  have  no  form  or  other  spatial  attributes.  Such  ex- 
pressions as  square  or  round  or  crooked  or  solid  activities  are 
seen  at  once  as  absurd,  when  used  in  a  literal  sense.  Even 
the  coarsest  form  of  the  atomic  theory  allows  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  spatial  contact  of  being  with  being,  and 
that  all  connection  is  mediated  by  a  dynamic  interaction. 


THE  PEOCESS  OF  KNOWING.  443 

"With  this  admission,  it  becomes  apparent  that  the  extension 
of  a  thing  never  acts  as  such,  but  is  replaced  by  a  certain 
dynamic  intensity,  just  as,  in  painting,  distance  and  solidity 
are  replaced  by  light,  shade,  and  perspective.  It  follows, 
further,  that  differences  in  form,  distance,  and  extension  can 
be  manifested  only  in  varying  intensities  of  non-spatial  ac- 
tivities. When  this  insight  is  reached,  the  notion  of  a  pas- 
sive perception  of  extension  vanishes  utterly.  The  antece- 
dents of  the  perception  of  extension  are  totally  unlike  ex- 
tension, and  if  they  are  ever  to  become  extension  again,  it 
can  be  only  as  the  mind  reconstructs  these  antecedents  into 
their  spatial  forms.  The  arrangement  of  lines  and  pigments 
which  make  a  picture  is  not  itself  a  landscape,  and  never 
can  become  one,  yet  the  mind  can  read  this  arrangement 
back  into  a  landscape.  But,  just  as  we  pass  from  daubs  of 
paint  to  what  they  mean  only  through  a  constructive  action 
of  the  mind,  so,  also,  we  pass  from  the  varying  intensities 
of  sensation  to  their  spatial  significance  only  through  a  con- 
structive activity  of  the  mind.  "We  object,  then,  to  the  the- 
ory of  an  immediate  knowledge  of  space-elements,  not  that 
it  is  false,  but  that  it  falsely  assumes  to  have  disproved  the 
necessity  of  regarding  space  as  a  mental  principle,  as  well 
as  an  objective  fact.  We  conclude,  then,  that  if  the  mind 
had  no  inherent  tendency  to  bring  certain  of  its  objects  into 
the  forms  of  space-intuition,  the  knowledge  of  space  could 
never  arise,  no  matter  how  real  space  might  be.  To  the 
question,  Why  do  we  see  things  in  space  ?  the  common-sense 
philosopher  has  thought  it  sufficient  to  say,  We  see  things 
in  space  because  they  are  in  space.  The  insufficiency  of 
this  answer  is  apparent. 

A  final  form  of  the  "nativistic"  theory  must  be  men- 
tioned. It  has  been  held  by  some  that,  in  sensation,  we 
have  an  immediate  knowledge  of  extension,  and  that  this  is 
enough  to  account  for  our  conception  of  space.  Given  the 
simple  experience  of  extension,  we  need  posit  no  peculiar 
mental  activity  to  account  for  our  complete  conception  of 


444r  METAPHYSICS. 

space  and  its  relations.  It  is  even  alleged  that  our  sensa- 
tions themselves  are  extended,  and  are  distinctly  known  as 
such.  This  view  of  sensation  we  regard  as  totally  false. 
As  a  spiritual  affection,  it  can  have  no  extension.  A  square 
or  oblong  or  circular  sensation  is  an  expression  to  which  no 
one  can  attach  any  meaning  who  does  not  identify  sensa- 
tions with  external  objects.  The  utmost  that  could  be 
claimed  is,  that  every  sensation  carries  with  it  a  distinct 
reference  to  an  extended  cause  without  us.  This  would 
bring  us  back  to  the  common  view  of  immediacy  of  spatial 
perception.  "We  have  already  seen  that  this  immediacy  it- 
self rests  upon  a  peculiar  factor  in  the  mind ;  bnt  if  this  fac- 
tor did  nothing  more  than  produce  a  feeling  of  an  extended 
object,  we  should  certainly  never  attain  to  our  present  con- 
ception of  space.  If  a  mind  should  really  have  experience  of 
many  extended  objects,  there  would  be  nothing  in  that  fact 
to  bring  them  into  further  relations.  They  would  all  be 
alike  as  to  extension,  but  they  would  not  exist  in  a  common 
space.  The  bare  fact  of  being  all  extended  would  be  com- 
patible with  their  existence  each  in  a  separate  and  incom- 
mensurable space ;  just  as  the  products  of  imagination  exist 
in  unrelated  spaces.  Nor  can  they  ever  come  together  into 
a  common  space  until  the  mind  brings  them  into  it.  By  its 
unifying  and  co-ordinating  act,  it  must  assign  to  each  its 
relative  place  in  our  space-vision;  and  until  this  is  done 
thought  lias  not  reached  the  unity  of  space,  and,  however 
much  knowledge  we  might  have  of  extended  individuals, 
we  would  have  no  ground  for  saying  that  these  must  all  ex- 
ist in  one  and  the  same  space.  But  the  mind  is  under  the 
necessity  of  having  no  unrelated  objects  in  intuition  as  well 
as  in  reflection.  Hence  it  is  forced  to  relate  its  objects  to 
one  another  in  intuition,  and  the  result  is  our  complete  space- 
intuition,  in  which  everything  is  related  to  everything  else, 
and  has  its  proper  place.  We  know  that  things  are  all  in 
one  space  only  because  we  relate  all  things  in  a  common 
scheme  of  intuition,  and  according  to  a  common  rule.  But 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  445 

this,  again,  is  only  the  expression  of  an  inherent  factor  in 
the  soul,  or  an  apriori  mental  principle.  This  locating  and 
co-ordinating  of  its  objects  in  a  common  intuition  is  the  es- 
sential space-activity  of  the  soul. 

The  conception  of  space  as  a  unit  is,  doubtless,  a  product 
of  abstraction  from  the  results  of  this  relating  activity.  "We 
do  not  claim  that  we  start  with  any  conception  of  space 
whatever,  and,  least  of  all,  that  space  is  originally  known  as 
one,  and  infinite,  etc.  But  the  soul  has  the  necessity  of  re- 
lating all  its  objects  in  intuition,  and  hence,  whenever  any 
new  point  is  posited,  it  at  once  relates  it  to  all  other  points. 
But  the  positing  of  points  is  possible  in  all  directions,  and 
thus  arises  the  conception  of  a  space  extending  equally  on 
all  sides.  There  is,  too,  no  inner  reason  why  the  positing 
of  points  should  cease  at  any  point  whatever.  The  process 
is  capable  of  indefinite  repetition,  like  a  recurring  series  in 
algebra,  and  thus  arises  the  notion  of  space  extending  indef- 
initely on  all  sides.  No  point  can  be  posited  in  imagination 
which  will  not  be  immediately  related  to  all  other  points,  or 
to  the  system  of  points ;  and  thus  arises  the  conception  of 
one  and  all-embracing  space.  The  conceptions  of  full  and 
empty  space  are  born  of  experience. 

Finally,  this  conception  of  the  space-activity  as  consisting 
in  a  peculiar  form  of  relating  the  manifold  throws  doubt  on 
the  assumed  possibility  of  a  consciousness  of  extension  with- 
out any  relating  activity.  Certainly,  if  the  conception  of 
extension  involves  a  relation  of  different  parts — as  of  inner 
and  outer,  right  and  left,  top  and  bottom — or  a  distinction  of 
points  as  adjacent  and  separate,  the  consciousness  of  exten- 
sion is  impossible,  without  the  spatial  activity  of  the  mind. 
It  equally  follows  that  a  single  point  or  object  can  never  be 
known  as  in  space.  There  can  be  no  relation  with  only  one 
member ;  and  if  space  be  only  a  special  form  of  relation,  it 
can  exist  only  as  the  related  members  exist.  In  that  case, 
the  knowledge  of  extension  would  itself  be  an  outcome  of 
the  space-activity,  and  not  its  foundation. 


446  METAPHYSICS. 

Thus  we  have  sought  to  justify  the  claim  that  perception 
is  an  active  and  constructive  process  on  the  part  of  the 
mind,  and  that  the  norms  of  this  process  are  laws  of  the 
mind  itself.  We  have  seen  that  a  simply  sensitive  mind 
could  never  attain  to  rationality  or  even  to  externality,  and 
that  a  comparing,  discriminating,  and  relating  activity  is  the 
basis  of  all  thought,  and  hence  the  basis  of  all  knowledge. 
We  conclude  that  knowledge  is  not  a  process  in  the  mind, 
but  an  act  of  the  mind.  The  detailed  steps  of  the  process 
we  leave  to  inductive  psychology.  We  have  previously 
remarked  that  it  is  conceivable  that  there  should  be  no  sen- 
sation in  knowledge ;  but  that  the  action  of  the  object  on 
the  soul  should  lead  to  a  pure  perception  without  any  feel- 
ing. In  that  case,  perception  would  be  as  devoid  of  sensa- 
tion as  is  abstract  thought.  It  is  equally  possible  that  all 
perception  should  be  immediate,  and  none  of  it  derived 
from  processes  of  judgment.  The  relation  between  the 
object  and  the  mind  might  be  such  that  we  should  at  once 
perceive  it  as  it  is,  and  where  it  is.  But  this  is  not  the  case. 
We  learn  to  perceive.  Our  judgments  of  size  and  distance 
are  all  acquired  from  experience.  The  most  of  our  sense- 
perception  is  based  on  an  automatic  interpretation  of  sense- 
signs  which  we  have  learned.  Here  emerges  the  possibility 
of  sense-illusions.  When  any  nervous  sign  which  we  have 
been  accustomed  to  associate  with  a  given  thing  is  produced 
by  disease,  or  in  any  uncommon  way,  we  perceive  the  object 
which  in  our  normal  experience  belongs  to  that  sign.  De- 
lusions of  this  kind  are  not  possible  until  sense-experience 
has  acquired  some  consistency  and  fixedness.  On  the  other 
hand,  experience  could  never  acquire  any  fixedness  if  cases 
of  this  kind  were  common.  There  must  be  no  general  con- 
fusion of  excitations  if  an  orderly  mental  life  is  to  be  pos- 
sible. Again,  when  there  is  a  slight  variation  in  the  con- 
ditions of  our  sense-experience,  the  result  is  untrustworthy 
until  rectified  by  further  experience.  Hence  when  we  re- 
move to  a  clearer  atmosphere,  our  judgments  of  size  and 


THE  PEOCESS  OF  KNOWING.  447 

distance  are  all  at  sea.  Accurate  judgments  of  distance  by 
water  are  impossible  to  one  who  has  dwelt  always  on  the 
land.  Even  a  low  temperature  on  a  clear  morning  suffices 
to  give  a  sharper  outline  to  distant  objects  and  thus  to  mod- 
ify our  judgment  both  of  size  and  distance.  These  facts 
bring  into  prominence  the  great  part  which  judgment  and 
association  play  in  sense-perception.  They  also  prove  that 
perception  is  not  an  immediate  contact  with  the  object,  but 
rather  a  construction  of  the  object.  Certain  elements  only 
are  given  and  the  mind  is  left  to  build. 

Sensation,  then,  is  the  excitation  against  which  the  mind 
reacts  with  perception.  But  not  all  sensations  are  equally 
adapted  to  lead  to  perception.  Sight  and  touch  and  some 
of  the  feelings  which  attend  muscular  movement  are  almost 
the  exclusive  sources  of  our  knowledge  of  the  outer  world. 
It  is  indeed  conceivable  that  all  of  our  senses  should  have 
been  equally  perceptive,  but  such  is  not  the  case.  It  is 
doubtful  if  a  man  with  only  ears  and  nose  would  ever  ad- 
vance beyond  a  confused  objectivity  or  sense  of  something 
not  himself.  Eyes,  too,  without  the  possibility  of  touch 
and  movement  would  probably  lead  no  further  than  this. 
There  would  be  nothing  in  either  of  these  cases  which 
could  lead  to  our  present  world-vision  of  things  distributed 
in  space  and  diverse  in  form  and  number.  We  do  not, 
then,  view  the  categories  as  unconditionally  evoked  by  any 
and  every  sense-experience;  we  rather  hold  that  a  specific 
and  peculiar  experience  is  needed  to  evoke  any  one  of 
them.  This  is  especially  the  case  with  regard  to  space.  It 
is  quite  conceivable  that  a  mind  like  our  own,  which  should 
have  experiences  only  of  odors  and  sounds  and  pains,  might 
never  come  to  the  conception  of  space  at  all.  It  would  re- 
fer its  experiences  to  a  cause  not  spatially  external,  but  on- 
tologically  diverse,  and  it  would  be  able  to  classify  them 
and  reflect  upon  them.  It  might  discover  various  laws  of 
sequence  among  them,  and  be  able  to  read  the  past  and  the 
future  with  great  accuracy.  But  none  of  these  experiences 


448  METAPHYSICS. 

\vould  contain  any  ground  for  a  spatial  intuition  of  its  ob- 
jects. The  mind  can  be  roused  to  this  only  by  particular 
forms  and  sequences  of  sensation.  To  discover  these  forms 
and  their  physiological  ground  is  the  province  of  physio- 
logical psychology.  It  will  never  be  possible,  however,  to 
learn  more  than  the  form  of  the  fact;  and  this  form  will 
always  have  a  contingent  character.  Certain  physical  move- 
ments are  attended  by  sensation ;  but  no  one  knows  how  or 
why.  So  also  certain  forms,  and  only  certain  forms,  of  sen- 
sation are  attended  by  a  space  -  construction ;  but  no  one 
knows  how  or  why.  In  both  cases  we  come  down  to  an 
order  of  fact  of  which  we  can  give  no  account. 

We  come  here  to  an  assumption  which  every  theory  has 
to  make.  Objective  knowledge  rests  upon  an  interaction 
of  the  self  with  the  not-self ;  and  as  such,  it  must  be  subject 
to  law.  In  speaking  of  interaction  in  general,  we  pointed 
out  that  it  demands  exact  adjustment  between  the  interact- 
ing things.  Otherwise  like  antecedents  would  have  unlike 
consequents,  and  chaos  would  result.  Unless  we  are  to  re- 
sign perception  to  be  a  mere  hap-hazard  process,  we  must 
extend  the  same  notion  of  adjustment  to  it.  So  far  as  the 
interaction  extends,  a  given  state  of  the  physical  series  de- 
mands a  corresponding  state  of  the  mental  series ;  and  this 
order  must  be  viewed  as  unchangeable.  But  we  also  saw 
that  if  this  parallelism  were  made  universal,  we  should  fall 
into  the  scepticism  which  necessarily  results  from  the  doc- 
trine of  an  all-embracing  pre-established  harmony.  We 
must  have  law  and  uniformity  in  the  elements  of  the  inter- 
action, or  all  is  fortuitous.  But  if  we  affirm  necessity  of 
the  entire  process,  there  is  no  explanation  of  error  which 
will  not  at  the  same  time  overturn  truth.  The  only  way 
out  of  the  difficulty  is  to  admit  that  in  perception  the  ele- 
ments of  the  interaction  between  the  ego  and  the  non-ego 
are  fixed,  but  may  be  differently  combined.  They  consti- 
tute the  alphabet  of  knowledge ;  but  in  their  combination 
an  element  of  wilfulness  or  carelessness  may  appear  and 


THE  PROCESS  OF  KNOWING.  449 

unite  them  in  ways  foreign  to  the  truth  of  things.  What 
must  be  allowed  for  the  perceptive  process  in  general  must 
also  be  allowed  for  the  intuition  of  things  in  space.  Cer- 
tain definite  forms  of  sensation  allow  only  a  fixed  space- 
construction.  The  sensation  from  which  we  construct  the 
vision  of  a  triangle  is  incompatible  with  the  vision  of  a 
sphere.  It  is  highly  probable  that  the  sensations  of  vision, 
touch,  and  movement  are  likewise  shut  up  to  fixed  space- 
representations,  so  far  as  they  are  represented  at  all.  With- 
out some  such  general  assumption,  not  even  the  doctrine  of 
local  signs  throws  the  least  light  upon  the  problem.  If  the 
local  sign  presupposes  a  knowledge  of  location,  it  is  a  pure 
superfluity  as  to  the  question  in  hand.  If  it  be  only  a  sen- 
sation qualitatively  distinct  from  others,  it  contains  in  itself 
not  the  least  reference  to  space,  but  can  only  be  the  incite- 
ment against  which  the  soul  reacts  with  a  space-construc- 
tion. All  we  can  hope  to  do,  therefore,  is  to  find  not  why 
sensations  are  spatially  interpreted,  but  what  sensations  lead 
to  such  interpretation. 

29 


450  METAPHYSICS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM. 

IN  the  progress  of  our  studies,  our  thoughts  about  things 
have  undergone  various  transformations ;  but  it  has  not  oc- 
curred to  us  to  doubt  that  things  exist  in  some  form  in  ex- 
ternal reality.  Possibly  the  thing  may  be  only  a  form  of 
divine  energizing ;  possibly  it  may  be  such  a  hard  and  fast 
reality  as  common-sense  assumes;  but  in  either  case  it  has 
an  objective  existence.  But  the  results  of  the  last  chapter 
cannot  fail  to  shake  this  natural  faith.  We  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  outer  world  is  revealed  to  us  only 
through  sensation,  and  that  if  this  order  of  sensation  were 
maintained  in  us  apart  from  any  action  of  the  world,  the 
world  might  fall  away  without  our  missing  it.  Moreover, 
our  thought  of  the  outer  world  is  made  up  entirely  of  sub- 
jective elements.  The  sense-elements  of  knowledge  are  uni- 
versally admitted  to  be  only  objectified  affections  of  the 
soul ;  while  the  rational  elements  of  knowledge,  as  lying 
outside  of  any  possible  sense-experience,  are  entirely  con- 
tributed by  the  mind  itself.  The  mind  must  build  the 
world  out  of  its  own  states  and  ideas.  The  sensationalist 
allows  it  only  sensations  as  the  material  for  its  world-con- 
struction. The  intuitionist  adds  a  certain  outfit  of  apriori 
ideas ;  but  neither  school  escapes  the  need  of  constructing 
the  objective  world  out  of  subjective  elements.  But  if  the 
content  of  the  thought  be  thus  subjective,  may  not  the  thing 
also  be  only  a  mental  product?  In  addition,  we  must  re- 
member that  perception  comes  under  the  general  head  of 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND   PHENOMENALISM.          451 

interaction,  and  that  our  world-vision  must  be  an  effect  in 
us.  But  what  shall  assure  us  that  the  external  cause  of  this 
effect  is  anything  like  the  effect  ?  Analysis  has  shown  us 
that  all  that  we  receive  from  the  outer  world  is  certain  sen- 
sations, against  which  the  mind  reacts  by  constructing  in  it- 
self a  world-vision.  All  that  we  theoretically  need,  then,  is 
an  objective  ground  of  our  sensations ;  and  this  objective 
ground  turns  out  to  be  not  the  object  as  perceived,  but  the 
all-enfolding  God.  Thus  the  world  of  perception  threatens 
to  disappear  from  reality  and  become  only  an  effect  in  us. 
This  brings  us  to  consider  the  nature  of  the  object  in  per- 
ception. Has  it  an  ontological,  or  only  a  phenomenal  real- 
ity? 

This  question  as  to  the  reality  of  the  object  in  perception 
must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  this  other  question,  Is 
there  an  objective  reality?  The  common  conception  of 
idealism  is  that  it  does  nothing  but  raise  the  latter  question ; 
and  a  good  part  of  realistic  polemics  is  based  on  the  confu- 
sion. Thus  many  realists  have  thought  to  overthrow  ideal- 
ism by  pointing  out  that  in  our  sense-experience  we  find 
ourselves  coerced  and  resisted  by  something  not  ourselves. 
This  fact  would  be  conclusive  if  the  aim  were  to  prove  the 
existence  of  something  besides  ourselves ;  but  this  no  one 
doubts.  Berkeley  affirmed  an  objective  and  spiritual  ground 
of  our  sensations  as  an  absolute  necessity  of  thought.  He 
questioned  only  the  external  existence  of  the  object  in  per- 
ception, and  reduced  it  to  an  effect  in  us.  But  this  question 
cannot  be  decided  by  appealing  to  the  fact  that  we  are  con- 
ditioned in  our  sense-experience  and  objective  effort.  The 
idealist  who  understands  his  own  system  is  as  far  as  the  real- 
ist from  claiming  that  all  existence  is  a  mode  of  his  own  im- 
agination. Every  one  knows  that  in  sensation  he  is  condi- 
tioned by  something  not  himself.  If  asked  how  we  know 
it,  the  answer  is  that  no  one  knows  how  he  knows  it,  but 
every  one  knows  that  he  knows  it.  There  will  always  be  at 
the  foundation  of  our  mental  life  propositions  which  cannot 


452  METAPHYSICS. 

be  mediated  or  deduced.  Acceptance  or  rejection  alone  is 
possible.  Hence  the  question  how  we  know  a  thing  has 
meaning  only  when  the  knowledge  is  mediate  and  inferen- 
tial ;  to  immediate  knowledge  it  has  no  application.  In  like 
manner,  the  demand  for  proof  has  application  only  to  de- 
rived knowledge.  If  there  be  anything  of  which  we  are 
immediately  certain,  proof  is  both  impossible  and  superflu- 
ous. The  necessity  in  the  present  case  is  indeed  only  a  ne- 
cessity of  fact,  but  it  is  none  the  less  cogent.  There  is  no 
contradiction  in  solipsism,  but  it  is  none  the  less  impossible. 
Ko  one  can  regard  himself  as  the  universe.  What  we  can- 
not help  doing  must  be  done ;  and  we  cannot  help  admitting 
that  we  are  conditioned  by  something  not  ourselves.  Both 
idealist  and  realist  are  forced  to  admit  an  objective  ground 
of  our  sensations;  and  both  are  equally  far  from  regarding 
them  as  arbitrary  fancies  of  our  own.  Hence,  instead  of  the 
question,  Is  there  reality  ?  the  idealist  rather  asks,  "What  is 
the  real  and  what  its  true  nature  ?  In  opposition  to  tech- 
nical realism,  he  questions  whether  the  object  in  perception 
is  of  such  a  kind  as  to  be  capable  of  real  existence. 

Again,  the  dispute  between  the  idealist  and  the  realist  in 
no  way  concerns  the  phenomenal  world.  For  both  alike 
phenomena  have  an  external  cause ;  and  the  same  phenomena 
may  exist  for  both  and  in  the  same  order.  Even  the  Berke- 
leian  idealist  regards  the  order  of  phenomena  as  constant, 
and  views  given  phenomena  as  the  permanent  sign  of  the 
possibility  of  other  phenomena.  Berkeley  himself  insisted 
upon  this  point  so  strongly  and  so  frequently  that  it  is  in- 
conceivable that  any  presumably  rational  beings  could  have 
thought  it  relevant  to  urge  him  to  knock  his  head  against 
a  post,  or  to  thrust  his  hand  into  a  fire.  Our  entire  sense- 
experience  can  be  consistently  and  sufficiently  expressed  in 
terms  of  sensation,  actual  or  expected ;  and  all  that  is  needed 
for  the  guidance  of  conduct  is  to  know  that  the  combinations 
and  sequences  of  sensation  have  a  fixed  order.  With  this 
knowledge  the  most  pronounced  idealist  is  practically  as 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          453 

wise  as  the  most  fanatical  realist.  The  question  is  not  as  to 
the  nature  and  laws  of  phenomena,  but  concerns  solely 
their  interpretation.  From  this  standpoint  it  is  plain  that 
the  senses  themselves  can  never  settle  the  question  ;  for  the 
debate  lies  beyond  their  realm.  It  is  also  plain  that  the  ideal- 
ist is  not  to  be  charged  with  distrusting  the  senses.  He  ad- 
mits as  unquestionable  all  that  the  senses  give ;  but  he  denies 
that  they  give  as  much  as  the  realist  assumes.  All  that  the 
senses  can  give  is  coexistent  or  sequent  orders  of  sensation. 
To  our  sensibility  a  thing  is  only  a  clump  of  sense-qualities. 
The  realist  'declares  that  a  law  of  thought  forces  him  to 
assume  something  more.  The  idealist  allows  the  claim,  but 
adds  that  the  nature  and  position  of  that  something  more 
form  the  point  in  dispute.  The  idealist  believes  in  reality 
as  much  as  the  realist  himself.  They  differ  not  on  the  fact 
of  reality,  but  on  its  nature  and  location.  The  decision  be- 
tween them  cannot  be  reached  by  appeals  to  the  senses,  but 
only  by  consistent  thinking.  We  pass  to  the  discussion. 

Three  views  are  possible  concerning  the  object  in  percep- 
tion. We  may  regard  it  (1)  as  a  thing  in  the  common 
meaning  of  the  term ;  (2)  as  a  phenomenon  of  an  objective 
fact  of  some  kind ;  and  (3)  as  only  an  effect  in  us.  In  the 
first  case,  we  have  the  common  realism ;  in  the  second,  we 
have  phenomenalism  or  objective  idealism  ;  in  the  third,  we 
have  subjective  idealism.  We  consider  the  last  view  first. 

At  first  glance  subjective  idealism  appears  to  be  the  sim- 
plest and  best-founded  theory.  The  demand  for  a  sufficient 
reason  is  fully  met  by  providing  an  objective  and  spiritual 
ground  as  the  cause  of  our  sensations,  and  by  referring  to 
the  constructive  action  of  the  mind  whereby  the  object  is 
built  up  in  thought.  These  two  factors  suffice  to  explain 
all  the  facts.  An  effect  is  observed  and  referred  to  its 
adequate  causes ;  and  what  more  can  we  ask  of  any  theory  ? 
This  view  is  certainly  possible.  Our  world-vision,  considered 
simply  as  a  fact  in  our  minds,  not  only  does  not  need  any- 
thing more  for  its  explanation,  but  it  must  be  explained  in 


454  METAPHYSICS. 

this  way,  even  by  the  most  realistic  thinkers.  "We  are 
forced  to  this  admission  by  the  fact  that  every  theory  of 
perception  must  bring  the  process  under  the  law  of  interac- 
tion, and  that  the  outer  world  at  most  only  contributes  cer- 
tain nnpicturable  affections  of  ourselves,  which  have  to  be 
built  into  form  by  the  mind  before  perception  is  reached. 
The  view,  too,  is  not  only  possible,  but  it  admits  of  no  psy- 
chological or  metaphysical  disproof.  Some  have  sought  to 
disprove  it  by  referring  to  the  distinction  of  subject  and 
object.  The  subject  and  object,  it  is  said,  are  given  in 
necessary  antithesis,  and  consciousness  vouches  equally  for 
both.  But  this  mistakes  a  mental  form  for  an  ontological 
fact.  There  can,  indeed,  be  no  thought  or  proper  conscious- 
ness without  the  distinction  of  subject  and  object ;  but  this 
does  not  imply  that  the  object  is  a  proper  thing  and  ontologi- 
cally  diverse  from  the  subject.  We  have  the  same  form  of 
objectivity  in  dreams,  but  certainly  the  objects  in  dreams 
are  not  metaphysical  realities.  Much  of  the  argument 
against  idealism,  based  on  this  distinction  and  the  necessary 
correlation  of  subject  and  object,  is  of  so  crude  a  kind  as  to 
suggest  that  the  writers  conceive  the  subject  to  be  the  body 
and  the  objects  to  be  other  bodies,  and  then  seek  to  prove 
that  the  surrounding  bodies  are  as  real  as  our  own.  It  has 
also  been  urged  that  we  find  ourselves  resisted  and  coerced 
in  our  objective  experience,  and  that  thus  the  reality  of  the 
object  is  assured.  This  would  be  relevant  if  the  question 
were  to  prove  that  there  is  some  reality  beyond  the  individ- 
ual self ;  but  it  has  no  bearing  upon  the  reality  of  the  object 
in  perception,  unless  we  once  more  identify  the  subject  with 
the  organism,  and  the  object  with  surrounding  bodies. 
Kant  attempts  a  disproof  of  subjective  idealism  in  the 
second  edition  of  the  "  Critique,"  but  even  his  argument  rests 
mainly  upon  confounding  our  general  conditionedness  in 
external  experience  with  the  reality  of  the  perceived  ob- 
ject. The  lack  of  logical  connection  is  plain.  The  ground  of 
our  presentations  is  external.  We  cannot  have  them  at  will 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          455 

nor  dismiss  them  at  our  pleasure.  We  are,  then,  conditioned 
in  this  respect ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  our  presentations 
are  anything  more  than  effects  in  us.  Kant  further  argues, 
in  expounding  the  analogies  of  experience,  that  the  possibil- 
ity of  physics  depends  on  the  principle  that  substance  is 
real  and  permanent.  In  all  changes  of  phenomena  sub- 
stance must  be  assumed  permanent,  and  the  quantity  thereof 
in  nature  can  be  neither  increased  nor  diminished.  Hence, 
Kant  concludes  that  subjective  idealism,  by  denying  sub- 
stance, wrecks  science,  and  hence  must  be  false.  But  this 
argument  is  doubly  a  failure.  It  is  directed  against  the 
idealist  as  empiricist  and  not  as  metaphysician.  The  psy- 
chology and  theory  of  knowledge  of  many  idealists,  notably 
in  the  case  of  Berkeley,  have  been  very  imperfect  and  often 
mistaken;  but  this  fact  does  not  affect  their  metaphysics. 
And,  after  all  Kant's  argument,  it  turns  out  that  this  perma- 
nent and  indestructible  substance  is,  even  in  his  own  system, 
only  a  mental  function,  and  not  a  fact  of  reality.  For  him, 
things  are  only  syntheses  of  sense-qualities  under  the  form  of 
permanence ;  they  are  in  no  sense  proper  substances.  It  is 
possible  for  the  subjective  idealist  to  adopt  Kant's  general 
theory  of  knowledge  and  retain  his  own  metaphysical  con- 
clusion. Indeed,  they  agree  so  nearly  in  their  metaphysics 
that  Kant's  attempt  to  disprove  idealism  has  very  generally 
been  regarded  as  a  grave  inconsequence.  Finally,  Kant's 
charge  that  idealism  would  make  science  impossible  is 
especially  unfortunate ;  for  it  would  overturn  science  in  no 
other  sense  than  Kant's  own  system  does.  If  Kant's  theory 
be  true,  at  least  nine  tenths  of  our  theoretical  science  is  il- 
lusion. The  entire  universe  of  forces  and  substances,  of 
atoms  and  ethers,  disappears.  These  things  become  only  the 
way  in  which  the  mind  represents  to  itself  the  inscrutable 
ground  of  cosmic  movement  and  manifestation.  They  are 
mental  products,  and  have  only  a  mental  existence.  Berke- 
ley himself  would  scarcely  take  us  further.  Both  views 
admit  of  practical  science,  and  conflict  only  with  theoretical 


456  METAPHYSICS. 

science.  If  there  be  an  infinite  spirit,  which  embraces  all 
finite  spirits  and  furnishes  them  with  sense-experiences  in  a 
fixed  and  orderly  way,  it  is  still  a  most  useful  and  necessary 
work  to  study  the  orders  of  coexistence  and  sequence  in  our 
experiences.  Knowing  this  order,  we  shall  be  practically 
as  wise  as  the  wisest,  and  shall  be  in  a  position  to  reap  the 
best  possible  results  of  practical  science.  We  might  have 
the  greatest  enthusiasm  for  the  working  methods  of  science, 
and  first  detect  traces  of  lukewarmness  when  it  should  be 
proposed  to  regard  the  devices  of  method  as  ontological 
facts. 

Do  we,  then,  accept  subjective  idealism  ?  Not  yet.  We 
have  only  pointed  out  that  it  cannot  be  psychologically  or 
metaphysically  disproved.  No  consideration  of  the  process 
of  perception,  or  of  the  apparent  immediateness  and  self- 
sufficiency  of  our  knowledge,  will  avail  to  disprove  the  doc- 
trine. If,  then,  the  only  aim  were  to  explain  our  world- vis- 
ion as  a  fact  in  us,  we  should  have  no  reason  for  affirming 
any  objective  reality  besides  the  infinite.  But  this  world- 
vision  is  not  only  an  effect,  it  also  claims  to  be  a  revelation 
of  facts  beyond  ourselves,  and  this  claim  must  be  considered. 
Possibly  we  shall  find  in  the  content  of  the  facts  thus  re- 
vealed some  ground  for  viewing  them  as  real. 

The  fact  mentioned  in  the  opening  paragraph  of  the 
chapter,  that  the  content  of  our  thought  of  the  world  is 
made  up  of  subjective  elements,  is  in  itself  indecisive,  as 
this  must  be  so  in  any  case.  No  matter  how  real  the  world 
may  be,  it  can  be  known  to  us  only  through  thought,  and 
this  thought  must  be  a  subjective  product.  Some  idealists 
have  thoughtlessly  urged  this  necessity  as  an  argument  for 
idealism ;  but  its  legitimate  outcome  is  solitary  egoism,  for 
our  thought  of  persons,  other  than  ourselves,  is  as  purely  a 
subjective  product  as  our  thought  of  things  other  than  our- 
selves. But  no  philosopher  is  allowed  to  disgrace  philosophy 
by  making  it  farcical.  Hence  every  speculator  is  under  ob- 
ligations to  good  taste  and  good  faith  to  accept  as  an  un- 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.         457 

doubted  fact  the  coexistence  of  others  like  himself.  To 
question  this  is  to  reduce  philosophy  to  a  low  and  disingen- 
uous farce,  and  to  justify  the  contempt  of  every  earnest 
mind.  We  say  disingenuous  because  every  such  speculator 
forthwith  seeks  to  induce  others  to  accept  his  views,  al- 
though by  hypothesis  they  are  only  fancies  of  his  own.  Of 
course  this  admission  of  personality  does  not  imply  the  ad- 
mission of  substantial  corporeality,  but  only  of  the  thinking 
and  feeling  self.  Here,  then,  is  one  class  of  things  of  such 
a  kind  as  to  assure  us  of  their  objectivity. 

But  brave  as  are  these  words  about  disingenuous  farces, 
they  do  not  serve  to  repress  the  question  as  to  the  real 
ground  of  our  faith  in  the  existence  of  other  persons  like 
ourselves.  We  have  seen  that  the  infinite  mediates  all  in- 
teraction of  the  finite,  and  hence  that  all  affections  of  our- 
selves are  immediately  from  the  infinite.  God  is  the  cause 
of  causes  and  the  true  objective  ground  of  our  changing 
states.  But  if  these  states  were  given  in  their  present  or- 
der, we  should  as  certainly  construct  a  world  of  persons  as 
we  do  a  world  of  things.  If  the  world  of  persons  should 
drop  away,  we  should  never  miss  them,  but  should  continue 
to  have  the  same  apparent  personal  interaction  and  com- 
munion which  we  have  at  present.  If,  then,  God  had  any 
interest  in  deceiving  us,  he  could  as  easily  impose  upon  us 
an  unreal  world  of  persons  as  an  unreal  world  of  things, 
and  in  neither  case  would  there  be  any  psychological  or 
metaphysical  method  of  detecting  the  deceit.  What,  then, 
is  the  real  ground  for  admitting  the  existence  of  persons  ? 
We  may  refer  the  belief  to  instinct ;  but  this  is  only  to  de- 
cline the  question  while  seeming  to  answer  it.  Besides,  if 
we  allowed  the  answer,  the  question  would  renew  itself  in 
the  further  inquiry,  What  ground  have  we  for  trusting  our 
instincts?  The  true  reason  can  be  found  neither  in  psy- 
chology nor  in  metaphysics,  but  only  in  ethics.  Our  belief 
rests  ultimately  upon  the  conviction  that  it  would  be  moral- 
ly unbecoming  on  the  part  of  God  to  subject  us  to  any  such 


458  METAPHYSICS. 

measureless  and  systematic  deceit.  "We  conclude,  then,  (1) 
that  the  infinite  is  more  certainly  known  than  the  ob- 
jective finite ;  (2)  that  perception  is  essentially  a  revelation 
by  the  infinite  to  the  finite ;  and  (3)  that  faith  in  the  reve- 
lation must  be  based  on  an  ethical  faith  in  the  revelator. 
Hence,  although  our  thoughts  of  persons  other  than  our- 
selves are  purely  subjective  products,  and  although  the  ex- 
istence of  such  persons  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  ex- 
plain our  mental  state,  \ve  still  regard  such  persons  as  really 
existing,  not,  however,  because  of  the  psychologic  necessity 
of  the  admission,  but  because  of  the  ethical  absurdity  of 
the  denial.  And  for  the  validity  of  all  objective  knowledge 
of  the  finite  we  are  shut  up  either  to  faith  in  God  or  to 
a  blind  and  irrational  instinct. 

It  seems,  then,  that  we  are  clear  of  idealism ;  for  if  we 
trust  our  faculties  when  they  reveal  a  world  of  persons  like 
ourselves,  why  should  we  not  trust  them  when  they  reveal 
a  world  of  things?  How  can  we  throw  doubt  upon  one 
result  without  also  throwing  doubt  upon  the  other?  "We 
have  broken  through  the  claim  that  objects  do  not  exist  be- 
cause our  perception  of  them  is  only  an  effect  in  us.  In 
one  case  we  have  found  ourselves  compelled  to  affirm  that 
the  objects  have  real  existence.  Hence,  the  questions  just 
asked  would  be  conclusive  against  an  idealism  based  simply 
upon  the  process  of  perception,  and  not  upon  the  nature  of 
the  product.  In  that  case  any  discrimination  against  one 
class  of  objects  would  be  purely  arbitrary,  and  the  system 
could  be  held  only  by  volition.  It  is  of  no  use  to  say  that 
persons  are  not  objects  of  perception  such  as  things  are ;  for, 
so  far  as  the  knowing  process  is  concerned,  both  stand  on  the 
same  ground.  Neither  persons  nor  things  are  perceived  by 
the  senses ;  but  upon  occasion  of  certain  subjective  affections 
we  posit  persons  or  things  as  their  objective  ground.  Hence 
the  idealist  must  change  his  line  of  argument.  It  is  not 
enough  to  show  that  our  objects  are  thought-constructions ; 
for  they  must  be  this  in  any  case.  He  must  rather  show 


EEALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          459 

that  the  affirmation  of  things,  in  the  common-sense  of  the 
term,  is  not  only  not  necessary  but  is  inconsistent,  or  that 
the  so-called  material  world  is  seen  upon  reflection  and  anal- 
ysis to  be  incapable  of  existence  apart  from  thought.  That 
is,  the  idealist  must  base  his  conclusion  upon  an  analysis  of 
the  product  of  perception  rather  than  upon  the  process.  We 
assume,  then,  with  common-sense,  that  the  world  of  things 
does  not  depend  on  our  thinking,  but  is  in  itself  a  fact  of 
some  sort,  and  ask  only  what  kind  of  a  fact  it  is.  Is  it  such 
a  fact  as  it  seems  to  be,  or  something  quite  different  ?  Mean- 
while the  debate  with  the  subjective  idealist  wrill  lie  over. 

Allowing  the  world  to  be  in  itself  a  fact  of  some  kind, 
two  views  are  possible  concerning  its  nature.  The  realist's 
position  is  this:  The  system  of  the  world  is  a  complex  of 
substantial  things  which  are  endowed  with  various  forces, 
and  which  are  the  real  and  constant  factor  in  the  changes 
of  phenomena.  As  such  they  exist  apart  from  any  thought, 
and  when  we  perceive  them  we  add  nothing,  but  recognize 
what  they  are.  This  is  the  view  of  common-sense,  and  if 
analysis  detected  no  difficulties  and  inconsistencies  in  it,  it 
must  be  allowed  to  stand.  The  idealist,  on  the  other  hand, 
thinks  as  follows :  We  think  under  the  law  of  substance  and 
attribute,  or  of  thing  and  quality.  Both  thought  and  lan- 
guage are  impossible  without  nouns  as  the  independent  base 
of  the  sentence.  Accordingly,  we  tend  to  give  a  substantive 
form  to  every  object  of  thought.  So  we  speak  of  gravita- 
tion, electricity,  magnetism,  etc.,  as  agents  or  things ;  and  it 
is  not  until  we  reflect  that  we  perceive  that  they  are  forms 
of  agency  only.  Indeed,  every  constant  phenomenon  tends 
to  be  viewed  as  a  thing.  Now  the  world  owes  its  substan- 
tial existence  entirely  to  this  tendency.  This  substantive 
character  is  merely  the  form  under  which  certain  objective 
activities  of  the  infinite  appear  to  us.  The  idealist,  then, 
proposes  to  replace  the  nouns  of  realism  by  certain  constant 
forms  of  activity  on  the  part  of  the  infinite.  Change  in 


4GO  METAPHYSICS. 

things  lie  views  as  a  change  in  these  forms.  Progress  he 
views  as  a  higher  form  of  this  activity.  There  are  no  fixed 
points  of  being  in  the  material  world ;  but  everywhere  there 
are  law  and  order.  The  continuity  of  the  system  expresses 
simply  the  constancy  of  the  divine  action.  The  uniformity 
of  the  system  expresses  the  steadiness  of  the  divine  purpose. 
In  short,  the  world,  considered  in  itself,  is  an  order  of  divine 
energizing,  which,  when  viewed  under  the  forms  of  space 
and  time,  of  causality  and  substance,  appears  as  a  world  of 
things.  In  distinction  from  subjective  idealism,  this  view 
may  be  called  objective  idealism.  The  former  does  not 
allow  the  world  to  be  an  objective  fact,  but  only  a  series  of 
presentations  in  us;  the  latter  allows  it  to  be  an  objective 
fact,  but  holds  that  it  cannot  exist  as  it  appears  apart  from 
mind. 

The  realistic  view  is,  of  course,  more  harmonious  with 
spontaneous  thought  than  the  idealistic  view,  but  it  proper- 
ly has  no  advantage,  except  for  the  imagination.  It  is  more 
easily  pictured  than  idealism,  but  both  views  are  equally 
compatible  with  phenomena  and  with  objective  science. 
We  have  seen  that  even  subjective  idealism  is  compatible 
with  science,  so  far  as  the  latter  deals  with  phenomena  and 
eschews,  metaphysics,  while  objective  idealism  allows  all  the 
facts  even  of  scientific  metaphysics  to  stand,  and  seeks  only 
to  go  deeper.  It  allows  the  atom  and  its  laws,  and  sug- 
gests only  that  the  atom,  though  the  basis  of  physical  sci- 
ence, may  itself  be  phenomenal  of  some  basal  fact.  Thus 
all  the  principles  of  physical  science  remain  undisturbed, 
although  they  may  be  referred  to  something  behind  them, 
and  which  is  the  reality  in  them.  But,  even  if  the  princi- 
ples of  objective  science  were  disturbed,  it  would  not  follow 
that  idealism  is  false,  for  there  is  no  warrant  for  making  the 
possibility  of  physics  the  final  test  of  truth.  The  imagina- 
tion will  find  more  assurance  of  the  uniformity  of  nature  in 
the  hard  reality  of  the  physical  elements  than  in  the  purpose 
and  nature  of  the  infinite ;  but,  in  any  case,  this  is  a  fancy. 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND   PHENOMENALISM.          4-(Jl 

We  have  seen  that  the  finite,  of  whatever  kind,  comes  into 
existence,  and  remains  there,  only  because  of  the  demands 
of  the  system.  This  is  as  true  of  the  material  elements  as 
of  anything  else.  Hence,  we  have  no  ontological  assurance 
of  the  uniformity  of  nature  in  any  respect.  For  all  that  we 
know,  the  most  unimaginable  revolution  may  take  place  at 
any  moment,  and  in  the  most  unimaginable  way.  For 
knowledge  on  this  point,  we  must  have  either  a  revelation 
from  the  infinite  or  a  perfect  intuition  of  its  nature  and 
tendency.  Hence  the  uniformity  of  nature  can  never  have 
any  foundation  better  than  the  constancy  of  the  purpose 
and  nature  of  the  infinite.  Both  views,  then,  are  possible. 
To  decide  between  them,  we  must  analyze  the  nature  of  the 
object  known.  In  general,  this  was  the  course  taken  by 
Berkeley.  The  chief  part  of  his  polemic  against  matter 
consisted  in  showing  that  matter,  as  then  conceived,  could 
not  exist  apart  from  mind.  On  the  basis  of  Locke's  philos- 
ophy, this  was  very  easy  work ;  for,  according  to  Locke, 
material  substance  was  only  a  complex  of  simple  sensations, 
and  hence,  in  logic,  it  was  capable  of  existing  only  in  sensi- 
bility. Again,  matter  was  then  conceived  as  pure  passivity 
and  inertness.  Berkeley  pointed  out  that  matter,  as  thus 
conceived,  would  account  for  nothing,  and  could  only  be  an 
idea.  It  is  in  this  analysis  of  the  object  that  Berkeley  is  at 
his  best,  and  it  is  here  that  the  strength  of  his  argument 
lies.  It  must  be  allowed  that  no  empirical  philosophy  can 
escape  his  conclusion. 

In  analyzing  the  object,  we  point  out,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  sense-qualities  of  things  are  generally  regarded  as 
having  only  subjective  existence.  Spontaneous  common- 
sense  regards  heat,  color,  etc.,  as  immediate  qualities  of  the 
object ;  but  this  view  has  long  been  abandoned.  Xor  do 
we  rest  this  conclusion  on  the  fact  that  every  such  quality 
is  primarily  a  reaction  of  our  sensibility  against  external  ac- 
tion. This  is  the  case  with  all  knowledge,  and  does  not  ex- 
clude the  possibility  that  the  subjective  quality  may  also  be 


462  METAPHYSICS. 

a  quality  of  the  thing.  Nor  does  the  complicated  mechan- 
ism of  nerves  and  vibrations  exclude  the  same  possibility. 
These,  again,  might  be  the  machinery  whereby  we  become 
aware  of  the  true  qualities  of  things.  We  have  an  illustra- 
tion of  this  possibility  in  the  communication  of  thought  by 
language.  The  airy  waves  and  nervous  vibrations  have 
nothing  in  common  with  the  thought  from  which  they  pro- 
ceed, and  yet  they  result  in  the  reproduction  of  that  thought. 
The  real  ground  of  the  doctrine  lies  (1)  in  the  general 
teachings  of  physics,  which  leave  no  place  for  sense-quali- 
ties, except  as  effects  in  sensitive  beings ;  and  ( 2 )  in  the 
fact  that  these  qualities  are  without  significance  when  con- 
ceived as  existing  apart  from  sensibility.  How  a  thing 
tastes  when  it  is  tasted,  or  feels  when  it  is  felt,  is  revealed 
in  our  sensations ;  but  how  it  tastes  when  it  is  not  tasted,  or 
feels  when  it  is  not  felt,  is  a  problem  without  any  meaning. 
A  toothache  which  no  one  feels  is  just  as  possible  as  a  sight 
which  no  one  sees.  Tastes  and  odors,  sights  and  sounds, 
have  no  assignable  meaning  apart  from  a  sensitive  subject. 
All  that  can  be  said  of  the  object  is,  that  it  is  such  as  to  be 
capable  of  producing  these  sensations  in  us  under  the  proper 
circumstances.  When  the  thing  is  seen,  it  will  produce  in 
us  a  sensation  of  color.  When  it  is  felt,  it  will  produce  in 
us  certain  tactile  sensations.  When  it  is  tasted,  it  will  pro- 
duce certain  sensations  of  taste.  What  it  must  be  to  do 
this  is  partly  revealed  by  physical  science.  The  body  which 
is  to  appear  with  a  certain  color  must  be  able  to  set  the  ether 
in  vibration  in  a  certain  definite  way.  The  body  which  is 
to  produce  sensations  of  taste  must  cause  certain  chemical 
or  electric  changes  in  the  proper  organs.  The  sensations 
themselves,  however,  are  purely  and  only  subjective.  In 
itself,  the  world  is  neither  light  nor  dark,  neither  sounding 
nor  silent,  neither  sweet  nor  bitter,  neither  hard  nor  soft, 
but  such  that  it  produces  these  phenomena  in  us  under  the 
proper  conditions.  All  that  the  realist  can  mean  by  affirm- 
ing that  these  qualities  are  there  apart  from  our  experience 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM,          463 

is,  that  they  are  there  for  every  one  who  fulfils  the  condi- 
tions; and  this  universality  he  mistakes  for  objectivity. 
Light,  sound,  odor,  etc.,  in  the  proper  psychological  signifi- 
cance, are  contributed  to  the  world  by  the  mind ;  and,  apart 
from  the  mind,  the  world  cannot  exist  as  luminous,  reso- 
nant, odorous.  If,  then,  the  object  be  only  a  complex  of 
sense-qualities,  as  the  sensationalists  maintain,  Berkeley's 
subjective  idealism  is  a  demonstrable  necessity. 

So  much  the  realist  admits.  The  secondary  qualities  of 
matter  he  hands  over  to  subjectivity.  They  are  only  effects 
in  us,  and  have  no  claim  to  reproduce  their  cause.  The  fa- 
miliar fact  of  color-blindness  shows  that  the  same  object 
may  have  different  apparent  colors.  Hence  sense-qualities 
are  not  only  effects ;  they  are  also  contingent  upon  the  state 
of  our  nerves.  But  there  is  a  universal  element  in  percep- 
tion. In  the  so-called  primary  qualities  of  matter  we  come 
upon  something  which  is  independent  of  our  thought  and 
organization.  Here,  then,  the  realist  makes-  another  stand, 
but  without  success.  These  primary  qualities  are  those 
which  are  based  upon  the  relation  of  things  to  space,  such 
as  extension,  form,  space-filling,  etc.  These  qualities,  the 
realist  holds,  are  recognized,  not  constituted,  by  the  mind. 
But,  in  our  discussion  of  space,  we  found  that  space,  and  all 
its  sub-categories  of  size,  extension,  and  distance,  have  only 
a  subjective  existence.  They  are  the  form  which  non-spa- 
tial realities  take  on  in  intuition.  The  realist's  claim  that 
there  is  a  universal  element  in  perception  may  be  allowed, 
without  in  any  way  admitting  that  that  element  is  indepen- 
dent of  thought.  "We  have  seen  that  relations  in  general 
are  incapable  of  objective  existence ;  that  they  exist,  and 
can  exist,  only  in  the  relating  act  of  thought.  Hence  the 
world,  as  a  great  system  of  relations — that  is,  as  the  object 
of  science  and  of  all  rational  study — cannot  possibly  exist 
apart  from  thought.  It  has  its  character  of  spatiality  and 
inter-relatedness  only  in  the  mind  and  in  the  movement  of 
thought.  What  was  said  of  the  world  as  luminous,  etc., 


46i  METAPHYSICS. 

must  be  repeated  of  the  world  as  a  system  of  relations ;  it 
cannot  exist  apart  from  mind.  When  the  realist  attempts 
to  escape  this  by  saying  that  the  mind  recognizes  relations, 
but  does  not  make  them,  all  that  he  can  maintain  is,  that 
there  is  a  universal  element  in  the  relations.  Those  rela- 
tions do  not  exist  for  the  thought  of  one  alone,  but  for  the 
thought  of  all.  They  are,  then,  not  individual,  but  belong 
to  reason  itself.  This  we  not  only  allow,  but  we  also  stead- 
fastly affirm.  But  the  realist  curiously  confuses  universal- 
ity in  thought  with  independence  of  thought,  and  thinks  to 
secure  the  former  only  by  affirming  the  latter.  The  differ- 
ence, however,  is  very  great.  All  relations,  as  such,  are 
products  of  thinking,  and  exist  only  in  the  act  of  thought. 

It  only  remains  that  the  realist  take  his  stand  on  the  sub- 
stantiality of  the  physical  world.  Whatever  it  may  not  be, 
it  at  least  is  real  and  substantial.  In  this  element  of  sub- 
stantiality the  realist  puts  the  great  difference  between  him- 
self and  the  idealist.  For  the  latter,  things  are  only  phe- 
nomena, while  for  the  former  they  are  also  things  in  them- 
selves. For  the  latter,  the  only  existence  in  things  apart 
from  thought  is  the  system  of  activities  on  the  part  of  the 
infinite;  for  the  former,  things  have  real  existence  apart 
from  any  thought.  Herein  the  realist  fancies  that  he  has  a 
great  practical  advantage  over  the  idealist ;  but  the  advan- 
tage is,  in  fact,  only  a  relief  to  the  imagination.  In  partic- 
ular, he  fancies  that  he  has  a  better  explanation  of  the  per- 
manent possibility  of  sensation  which  is  found  in  sense- 
experience.  When  certain  conditions  are  fulfilled,  certain 
phenomena  are  present  to  us.  By  varying  the  conditions 
we  vary  the  phenomena,  and  by  restoring  the  conditions 
we  restore  the  phenomena.  Hence,  under  given  conditions, 
there  is  what  Mill  called  a  permanent  possibility  of  sensa- 
tion, but  which  would  better  be  called  a  permanent  possibil- 
ity of  phenomena.  But  it  is  hard  to  see  in  what  this  possi- 
bility is  better  explained  by  the  impersonal  thing  than  by 
the  constant  activity  of  the  infinite,  especially  as,  without  an 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          465 

activity  of  Jhe  infinite,  the  impersonal  thing  would  never 
affect  us  at  all.  Permanence  and  universality  are,  at  least, 
as  well  accounted  for  by  the  idealist  as  by  the  realist.  In- 
deed, the  latter  has  to  make  just  as  many  demands  upon  the 
infinite  as  the  former,  while  the  thing  which  he  posits  in 
addition  is  only  a  new  element  of  perplexity. 

Finally,  we  must  recall  what  we  found  in  our  discus- 
sion of  change.  We  were  there  concerned  to  see  how  we 
could  possibly  reconcile  change  and  identity.  We  are  ac- 
customed to  speak  of  things  with  changing  states,  and 
apply  the  notion  without  any  question  of  its  validity.  But 
when  we  inquired  as  to  its  use,  we  found  to  our  surprise 
that  it  applies  only  to  the  personal.  The  impersonal  is  sim- 
ply and  solely  process  and  law.  Permanence  and  proper 
existence  can  be  found  only  in  spirit.  These  conclusions 
must  be  applied  here.  The  question  of  the  substantiality  of 
the  physical  world  reduces  to  the  question  of  the  substan- 
tiality of  the  physical  elements.  If  these  are  impersonal, 
they  can  only  be  flowing  processes  of  the  infinite.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  no  warrant  for  attributing  to  them  per- 
sonality of  any  kind.  The  fancy  to  which  we  yielded  in 
discussing  materialism,  that  the  elements  may  be  alive  and 
have  a  true  subjectivity,  is  utterly  groundless.  The  only 
thing  which  leads  to  it  is  the  purpose  to  explain  mentality 
by  materiality,  and  this  makes  it  necessary  to  include  men- 
tality in  the  notion  of  materiality.  For  the  rest,  the  notion 
is  a  gratuitous  embarrassment  in  every  respect.  In  discuss- 
ing matter  and  force,  we  saw  the  difficulties  which  attend 
the  atomic  theory  of  matter  viewed  as  an  ontological  fact, 
and  we  decided  for  the  view  that  the  elements  are  not  prop- 
erly things,  but  only  constant  forms  of  the  action  of  the  in- 
finite according  to  fixed  laws.  In  addition,  the  discussion  of 
interaction  has  shown  that  the  impersonal  finite  can  lay  no 
claim  to  existence.  For,  as  impersonal,  it  is  without  sub- 
jectivity ;  and  as  finite,  its  objective  action  is  mediated  by 
the  infinite,  that  is,  it  is  done  by  the  infinite.  It  has,  then, 
30 


4G6  METAPHYSICS. 

no  longer  any  reason  for  existence ;  and  there  is  no  longer 
any  ground  for  affirming  its  existence.  It  does  nothing, 
and  is  nothing  but  a  form  of  thought  based  upon  the  activ- 
ity of  something  not  itself.  This  view  we  reproduce  as  our 
final  verdict.  Matter  and  material  things  have  no  ontolog- 
ical,  but  only  a  phenomenal,  existence.  Their  necessary  de- 
pendence and  lack  of  all  subjectivity  make  it  impossible  to 
view  them  as  capable  of  other  than  phenomenal  existence. 
This  world-view,  then,  contains  the  following  factors :  (1) 
The  Infinite  energizes  under  the  forms  of  space  and  time ; 
(2)  the  system  of  energizing  according  to  certain  laws  and 
principles,  which  system  appears  in  thought  as  the  exter- 
nal universe;  and  (3)  finite  spirits,  who  are  in  relation  to 
this  system,  and  in  whose  intuition  the  system  takes  on  the 
forms  of  perception.  This  view  is-  not  well  described  as 
idealism,  because  it  makes  the  world  more  than  an  idea.  If 
the  word  had  not  been  appropriated  to  denote  positivistic 
doctrines,  phenomenalism  would  be  a  much  better  title. 
This  word  sufficiently  implies  the  objective  nature  of  the 
world-process,  while  at  the  same  time  it  implies  that,  apart 
from  mind,  the  phenomena  would  not  exist.  Perhaps,  with 
all  its  disadvantages,  there  is  less  risk  of  misunderstanding 
in  using  phenomenalism  than  in  using  idealism.  If  it  be 
asked  how  there  can  be  an  energizing  which  neither  has  an 
object  nor  which  gives  itself  an  object,  the  answer  must  be 
that  the  energizing  according  to  a  law  and  plan  is  the  ob- 
ject. "We  may  get  some  hint  of  what  this  may  mean  from 
the  scholastic  doctrine  of  preservation  as  continuous  crea- 
tion. Such  creation  could  be  nothing  more  than  a  move- 
ment of  the  divine  activity  according  to  the  idea  of  the 
thing. 

But  here  subjective  idealism  cannot  fail  to  suggest  itself 
once  more.  When  we  were  considering  the  nature  of  per- 
ception, we  could  find  no  reason  for  making  things  subjec- 
tive which  would  not  also  make  persons  subjective ;  and,  as 


EEALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          467 

solipsism  is  too  ghastly  an  absurdity  for  any  patience,  we 
had  to  admit  the  existence  of  other  persons.  But,  so  far  as 
the  process  of  perception  is  concerned,  things  have  as  sound 
a  claim  to  objective  existence  as  persons.  "We  had,  then,  to 
assume  that  things  are  what  they  seem,  until  analysis  and 
reflection  should  compel  us  to  change  our  conceptions.  But, 
on  going  to  work  in  this  way,  it  soon  became  apparent  that 
the  outer  world  is  altogether  other  than  it  appears.  At  last 
it  became  clear  that  the  cosmos  can  be  nothing  other  than  a 
mode  of  divine  energizing  which  has  the  forms  of  percep- 
tion only  in  mind.  And  since  this  is  so,  why  not  go  one 
step  further,  and  declare  the  cosmos  to  be  only  a  series  of 
presentations  which  the  infinite  produces  in  the  finite  ?  We 
have  now  found  a  reason  for  affirming  pure  subjectivity  of 
things  which  does  not  apply  to  persons.  Persons  are  capa- 
ble of  proper  existence ;  but  things,  in  the  common  sense 
of  the  term,  are  not.  "Why  not,  then,  regard  the  infinite 
spirit  and  finite  spirits  as  comprising  all  existence,  and  make 
the  cosmos  merely  a  series  of  presentations  in  finite  spirits 
which  have  no  existence  whatever  apart  from  their  being 
perceived  ?  What  possible  advantage  can  there  be  in  lum- 
bering up  our  system  with  anything  more? 

These  questions  also  can  be  answered  only  by  reflection 
upon  the  nature  of  the  presentations.  It  may  be  that  we 
shall  find  them  such  as  to  compel  the  admission  that  our 
thought  of  the  world  is  not  its  only  reality.  But,  first,  an 
exposition  of  the  theory  is  necessary. 

If  it  were  possible  for  one  to  play  upon  another's  mind 
so  as  to  produce  a  dream-world  in  the  other's  thought,  that 
dream-world  would  have  its  objective  cause,  but  in  itself  it 
would  be  only  an  effect  in  the  subject's  mind.  On  this  the- 
ory of  idealism  the  world  of  perception  would  be  such  a 
subjective  effect,  and  the  creation  of  the  world  by  God 
would  mean  the  creation  of  the  thought  of  a  world  in  finite 
minds.  But  for  God  himself  there  would  be  no  world- 
process,  no  world -activity,  no  world -development,  and  no 


468  METAPHYSICS. 

world-history.  There  would  be  only  God  and  finite  spirits ; 
and  then  God,  who  embraces  all  finite  spirits  in  his  own  ex- 
istence, would  produce  in  them  a  consistent  and  harmonious 
world-vision.  His  objective  activity  would  be  exhausted  in 
furnishing  spirits  with  this  vision,  and  the  world  would  ex- 
ist for  God  only  as  a  rule  of  the  process. 

Berkeley  never  attained  to  any  consistency  in  his  thought, 
but  a  good  part  of  what  he  said  reduces  to  this  view.  Still 
he  was  very  far  from  realizing  all  its  implications.  First, 
it  is  plain  that  on  this  theory  the  object  of  perception  is 
strictly  individual ;  it  may,  indeed,  be  repeated  in  others' 
minds  in  similar  form,  but  in  itself,  as  an  effect  in  us,  it 
cannot  carry  us  beyond  itself.  There  is,  too,  not  the  least 
necessity  for  any  two  persons  having  the  same  presenta- 
tions. It  would  be  entirely  possible  that  one  person  should 
have  the  presentations  which  we  label  Boston,  and  that  his 
neighbor  should  have  at  the  same  time  the  presentations 
which  we  label  London.  There  would  be  no  more  need 
that  adjacent  persons  should  see  the  same  objects  than  that 
persons  who  sleep  in  the  same  bed  should  dream  the  same 
dreams.  Idealists  have  sought  to  escape  this  difficulty  by 
saying  that  all  persons  have  the  same  presentations  under 
the  same  circumstances ;  but,  unluckily,  the  theory  gives  no 
hint  of  what  may  be  meant  by  the  same  circumstances  for 
persons  other  than  myself.  If  I  leave  my  room,  I  may  say 
that  I  should  have  certain  presentations  if  I  returned.  This 
statement  is  not  affected  by  the  consideration  that  the  room 
itself  is  a  presentation,  for  I  may  still  say  that  along  with 
the  presentation  of  my  room  goes  also  the  presentation  of 
the  objects  in  my  room.  But  all  this  fails  to  carry  me  a 
single  step  towards  the  conclusion  that  my  neighbor  has  the 
same  presentations.  Assuming  the  uniformity  of  the  divine 
procedure,  I  may  be  sure  that  if  he  had  the  presentation  of 
my  room  he  would  also  have  the  presentation  of  the  objects 
in  the  room ;  but  the  fact  that  I  have  the  presentation  of 
the  room  is  no  ground  whatever  why  he  should  have  it. 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND   PHENOMENALISM.          469 

Everything  having  vanished  into  presentations,  there  is  no 
longer  any  objective  standard  of  reference.  We  no  longer 
see  the  same  thing,  but  have  similar  presentations ;  and  that 
we  have  similar  presentations,  we  learn  only  in  an  extremely 
indirect  way.  In  the  nature  of  the  presentation  itself  there 
is  nothing  to  warrant  us  in  thinking  that  it  is  shared  by  any 
one  else  whatever.  If  the  world  as  it  appears,  though  phe- 
nomenal, were  phenomenal  of  a  world- process  or  cosmic 
movement  apart  from,  our  thought,  these  difficulties  could 
be  escaped.  Phenomena  would  then  represent  the  thought- 
side  of  the  process,  and  would  have  a  universal  element. 
Difference  of  relation  to  the  process  would  explain  differ- 
ence of  phenomena,  and  position  could  be  defined  by  refer- 
ence to  the  phenomena.  But  when  this  is  not  the  case,  the 
object  is  strictly  individual. 

These  obvious  conclusions  from  the  theory  the  subjective 
idealists  have  not  always  been  disposed  to  admit.     Thus 
Berkeley,  at  times,  goes  so  far  as  to  affirm  a  universality  of 
the  object  in  perception.     The  object  which  exists  for  one 
exists  for  all,  though  on  what  he  bases  his  conclusion  does  not 
clearly  appear.     It  seems  to  be,  however,  the  objectivity  of 
the  intuition  which  leads  him  to  this  result.     Thus,  he  insists 
that  we  know  the  object  to  be  independent  of  our  mind, 
and  of  finite  minds  in  general ;  and  he  even  makes  thisA 
manifest  independence  of  the  object  an  argument  for  the  \ 
divine  existence.    For,  as  the  object  is  independent  of  finite   \ 
minds,  and  yet  cannot  exist  apart  from  mind,  it  follows  that    \ 
there  must  be  an  infinite  and  omnipresent  mind  in  which     \ 
the  material  world  exists.     Here  the  world  acquires  an  ob-     I 
jective  and  independent  existence,  so  far  as  the  finite  mind      1 
is  concerned.     It  is  not  merely  a  series  of  presentations  in 
finite  minds,  but  these  presentations  are  revelations  to  those 
minds  of  a  world  existing  apart  from  them.     We  do  not^ — 
then,  have  similar  presentations  only,  but  we  see  the  same 
world. 

The  view  thus  reached  abandons  the  extreme  form  of 


470  METAPHYSICS. 

subjective  idealism.  Instead  of  insisting  that  we  cannot 
transcend  ourselves,  and  that  our  ideas  are  only  effects  in 
us,  it  declares  the  universality  and  independence  of  the  ob- 
ject, so  far  as  the  finite  is  concerned.  Thus  the  question  is 
transferred  from  psychology  to  metaphysics,  and  the  claim 
is  set  up  that  this  universal  and  independent  object  cannot 
exist  apart  from  mind,  and  hence  that  it  exists  in  the  infi- 
nite mind.  This  view  is  not  very  different  from  Male- 
branche's  doctrine  of  the  vision  of  all  things  in  God.  But 
Berkeley  is  very  unclear  as  to  the  relation  of  this  world  to 
God.  At  times  he  allowed  the  world  to  exist  eternally  in 
the  divine  thought,  and  declared  creation  to  be  only  the 
manifestation  of  this  eternal  thought  to  finite  minds;  but 
still  he  failed  to  tell  in  what  the  reality  of  the  world  con- 
sists. To  explain  the  difficulty,  we  may  adopt  the  Leibnitz- 
ian  notion  of  many  possible  worlds,  conceptions  of  which 
fill  the  divine  imagination.  In  such  a  case  there  would  be 
no  reason  for  calling  one  of  these  systems  real  rather  than 
another ;  and  there  would  be  no  distinction  between  imagi- 
nation and  reality.  All  alike  would  be  equally  real  and 
equally  imaginary.  Kow  Berkeley,  in  declaring  the  world 
to  be  real  for  God,  gives  no  ground  for  distinguishing  this 
real  world  from  another  like  it  which  should  only  be  con- 
ceived or  imagined.  If  there  be  no  distinction,  then  the 
world  is  not  real  for  God,  except  as  any  conception  is  real 
for  the  mind  that  forms  it.  For  God  himself  the  world  is 
only  a  thought,  and  not  a  reality;  in  his  relation  to  finite 
minds  it  is  only  a  rule  for  producing  ideas.  Beyond  this 
the  world  has  no  existence.  Yet  this  is  the  view  which 
Berkeley  was  not  always  willing  to  accept.  The  only  way 
out  of  the  difficulty  is  that  taken  by  Leibnitz.  For  him  the 
world  was  not  merely  a  divine  thought,  but  a  divine  act 
also.  As  God  is  will  as  well  as  thought,  so  the  world  is  his 
act  as  well  as  his  conception.  AYithout  this  assumption  the 
world  has  only  a  conceptual  reality. 
But  these  difficulties  result  entirely  from  trying  to  give  the 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          471 

world  a  reality  beyond  our  presentations.  Any  movement 
in  tins  direction  must  be  away  from  subjective  idealism. 
But  may  we  not  leave  Berkeley  to  shift  for  himself,  and  re- 
turn to  the  view  that  the  world-vision  is  purely  an  effect  in 
us,  and  also  purely  individual?  We  are  not  in  a  common 
world,  but  only  seem  to  be ;  and  this  seeming  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  infinite  produces  consistent  and  harmonious 
ideas  in  different  minds.  But  here,  too,  we  meet  with  diffi- 
culties. First  of  all,  our  ability  permanently  to  modify  phe- 
nomena seems  to  point  to  something  beyond  our  presenta- 
tions. Again,  the  phenomenal  world  not  only  suggests  a 
reality  beyond  our  thoughts,  but  also  a  history.  The  world 
which  appears  not  only  seems  now  to  exist,  but  also  to  have 
existed.  The  fossils  and  strata  of  geology,  and  the  general 
wear  and  tear  of  things,  point  to  a  continuous  and  indepen- 
dent process.  These  things  would  be  quite  out  of  place  in  a 
system  of  pure  presentations,  unless  the  aim  were  to  deceive 
us.  Finally,  perception  claims  to  be  a  revelation  of  things 
and  processes  without  us ;  but  on  this  theory  of  subjective 
idealism  it  is  a  pure  fiction.  There  is  no  world-process,  no 
cosmic  movement,  no  going -forth  of  creative  power,  no 
manifestation  of  omnipotence,  but  only  a  magic -lantern 
show  which,  after  all,  shows  nothing.  The  mountains  were 
never  brought  forth ;  the  foundations  of  the  earth  were 
never  laid.  We  lift  up  our  eyes  to  the  heavens,  and  instead 
of  a  revelation  of  might  and  magnificence,  we  have  a  pres- 
entation ;  and  this  we  falsely  interpret.  God  is  doing 
nothing  in  time  but  furnishing  finite  spirits  with  ideas 
which,  for  the  most  part,  are  illusory.  Xow  it  is  impossible 
to  avoid  a  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  with  this  view  as  at  once 
poverty-stricken  and  unworthy.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  en- 
tirely possible  and  admits  of  no  disproof.  If  God  have 
any  interest  in  deceiving  us  in  regard  to  external  knowl- 
edge, we  have  no  psychological  or  metaphysical  means  of 
defence  against  the  fraud.  Our  only  ground  of  assurance 
is  the  ethical  conviction  that  such  a  tissue  of  deceit  and 


472  METAPHYSICS. 

magic  would  be  disgraceful  and  outrageous.  If  we  further 
ask  what  this  conviction  is  based  upon,  the  answer  must  be 
that  there  is  nothing  deeper  than  itself.  If  this  fail,  there 
is  nothing  left.  We  hold,  then,  that  the  world-process,  the" 
cosmic  movement,  is  not  in  our  thought  alone ;  and  that  the 
presentations  which  we  have  concerning  it  are  real  revela- 
tions, and  not  individual  phantoms.  The  world  is  not  mere- 
ly God's  thought,  it  is  also  his  act.  It  is  founded  in  the 
divine  will  as  well  as  in  the  divine  intelligence.  But  the 
ground  of  this  conviction  is  found  less  in  the  psychologic 
necessity  of  the  admission  than  in  the  ethical  and  aesthetic 
absurdity  of  the  denial.  Thus  it  appears  once  more  that  all 
objective  knowledge  of  the  finite  must  rest  on  an  ethical 
trust  in  the  infinite. 

Combining  the  result  thus  reached  with  the  outcome  of 
previous  reflection,  we  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  world 
in  itself  apart  from  mind  is  simply  a  form  of  the  divine  en- 
ergizing, and  has  its  complete  existence  only  in  thought. 
But  since  we  have  shaken  off  the  subjective  idealist  by  ap- 
pealing to  the  divine  veracity,  what  shall  hinder  the  realist 
from  using  the  same  argument  against  ourselves?  The  dis- 
ciple of  the  senses  finds  both  views  about  equally  unsubstan- 
tial, and  declares  that  both  alike  reduce  the  world  to  a  de- 
lusion. If,  then,  the  general  truthfulness  of  the  system  tells 
against  one  view,  it  must  tell  with  equal  force  against  the 
other.  The  answer  to  this  must  be  that  our  faculties  com- 
pel one  conclusion  and  not  the  other.  Our  form  of  idealism 
is  not  based  upon  distrust  of  our  faculties,  but  upon  trust 
in  them.  It  is  held  because  reason  itself  leads  up  to  it,  and 
because  reason  itself  shows  the  common  realism  to  be  incon- 
sistent. Some  further  exposition  is  needed  to  clear  up  re- 
maining misunderstandings. 

In  reply  to  the  charge  of  reducing  the  world  to  a  delu- 
sion, the  objective  idealist  calls  upon  the  realist  to  master 
the  distinction  between  subjectivity  and  delusion.  Light 
and  sound  are  subjective,  but  they  are  not,  therefore,  delu- 


KEALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMEXALISM.  473 

sions.  In  our  sensibility  they  have  their  full  reality  and 
value.  If,  then,  the  physical  universe  has  its  proper  signifi- 
cance and  reality  only  in  thought,  it  does  not  on  that  account 
become  a  delusion,  but  may  still  be  a  strict  universal.  The 
idealist  further  points  out  that  the  realist's  objections  rest 
on  unfounded  assumptions.  He  assumes  that  the  physical 
system  is  perfect  in  itself  apart  from  thought  and  sensibility, 
and  that  the  mind  has  only  the  function  of  a  copyist.  Not 
even  the  divine  thought  and  sensibility  are  constitutive,  but 
only  cognizant  of  what  could  exist  as  well  without  them. 
Both  of  these  assumptions  the  idealist  denies.  He  holds 
that  the  mind  is  no  copyist  simply,  that  the  sentient,  emo- 
tional, and  rational  life  has  a  value  of  its  own,  and  is  consti- 
tutive as  well  as  cognizant.  It  is  in  this  life  only  that  the 
system  acquires  any  significance  and  truly  comes  to  itself. 
The  realist  makes  the  value  of  mentality  to  consist  in  a 
copying  of  the  external;  while  the  idealist  reverses  this 
view,  and  makes  the  value  and  significance  of  the  outer  to 
consist  entirely  in  its  relation  to  the  mental  life.  What 
right,  he  asks,  has  the  realist  to  charge  the  mind  with  false- 
hood if,  instead  of  a  tiresome  monotone  of  vibration,  it  gives 
us  the  world  of  light  and  sound  with  its  richness  of  color 
and  harmony  ?  And  what  greater  right  has  he  to  abuse  the 
mind,  if  it  translate  the  ineffable  and  unpicturable  activities 
of  the  infinite  into  a  world  of  things  instinct  with  the  divine 
thought  and  life,  and  alike  expressive  of  both  ?  It  cannot 
be  too  often  repeated  that  mind  itself  is  a  part  of  the  gen- 
eral system;  and  therefore  it  cannot  be  surprising  if  the 
system  have  its  complete  existence  only  in  mind.  Plainly, 
if  the  mind  is  not  meant  to  be  a  copyist,  all  ground  for 
charging  it  with  failure  and  falsehood  falls  away.  Only 
that  is  a  failure  which  does  not  perform  its  proper  function. 
Only  that  is  false  which  wanders  from  its  proper  path. 
Every  theory  has  to  allow  that  to  a  large  extent  the  mind 
makes  the  world  it  sees.  Our  sensibility  clothes  the  world 
with  light  and  color  and  harmony.  In  itself  the  physical 


471  METAPHYSICS. 

system  cannot  attain  unto  these  forms.  The  sensitive  mind 
must  come  before  the  system  can  put  on  these  forms  of  value 
and  significance.  The  idealist  but  extends  the  same  thought 
further.  As  the  system  cannot  rise  to  the  forms  of  sense 
until  sensibility  is  attained,  no  more  can  it  rise  to  the  forms 
of  rationality  until  reason  is  reached.  It  is  thought  which 
gives  the  system  its  rational  character,  and  weaves  the  net- 
work of  law  and  relation  in  which  and  by  which  the  system 
has  its  existence.  But  in  saying  this,  the  idealist  is  careful 
to  add  that  this  thought  in  which  the  system  has  its  exist- 
ence is  not  this  or  that  man's  thought  only,  but  thought  in 
general.  It  is  the  universal  reason  of  the  infinite  in  which 
the  system  primarily  exists.  The  infinite,  as  well  as  the 
finite,  has  thought  and  reason.  In  a  previous  paragraph  we 
pointed  out  that  it  is  not  enough  to  consider  the  system  as  a 
divine  thought  alone,  but  that  it  must  also  be  viewed  as  a 
divine  act.  Now  we  point  out  on  the  other  hand  that  it  is 
not  enough  to  consider  it  as  a  divine  act,  but  that  it  must 
be  a  divine  thought  as  well.  And  so  the  final  claim  of  the 
idealist  is  that  the  world  cannot  exist  in  will  alone  nor  in 
thought  alone,  but  in  will  and  thought  together.  Will  gives 
the  jeality  of  the  world-process  and  thought  gives  the  form, 
and  neither  has  any  significance  apart  from  the  other. 

Still  it  will  be  urged  that  the  mind  is  in  some  sense  a 
copyist.  It  has  to  reproduce  in  thought  the  external  fact ; 
and  what  is  this  but  to  copy  it?  And  if  it  fail  to  reproduce 
this  fact,  what  can  we  say  but  that  it  distorts  it?  We  are 
often  enough  mistaken  in  our  perceptions,  and  what  are 
such  delusions  but  distortions  or  a  failure  to  copy  the  fact 
as  it  is?  These  questions  take  us  back  to  the  Introduction. 
We  there  pointed  out  that  thought  can  never  transcend  it- 
self so  as  to  grasp  objects  other  than  through  the  concep- 
tions we  form  of  them.  From  this  it  was  concluded  that  it 
is  absurd  to  speak  of  a  knowledge  of  things  apart  from 
thought,  and  that  the  true  aim  of  knowledge  is  not  to  reach 
what  is  true  apart  from  thought,  but  to  reach  the  universal 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.  475 

in  thought.  In  no  case,  then,  can  we  rationally  talk  of  the 
mind  as  copying  the  fact;  for  this  would  imply  that  the 
fact  could  exist  for  the  mind  apart  from  the  conception, 
and  that  the  latter  might  be  formed  on  the  model  of  the 
former.  The  aim,  then,  of  perception  is  not  to  copy  objec- 
tivity, but  to  get  the  universal  in  intuition  ;  and  sense-delu- 
sions are  not  failures  to  copy  reality,  but  to  reach  the  univer- 
sal. If  the  world-process  is  to  be  known,  it  must  have  a  fixed 
thought-equivalent;  and  a  perfect  intelligence  would  be  one 
which  should  fully  possess  this  equivalent.  Such  an  intelli- 
gence would  grasp  all  phases  of  the  world-process,  not  only 
from  the  absolute,  but  also  from  every  relative  standpoint. 
It  would,  then,  be  aware  of  all  possible  sides  and  phases  of 
being  and  of  all  possible  relations.  All  its  perceptions  and 
judgments  would  represent  a  universal,  and  any  departure 
from  them  by  other  minds  would  be  an  error.  The  aim  of 
perception  is  to  reach  such  universals,  and  not  to  copy  some- 
thing existing  apart  from  all  thought.  We  aim  to  conceive 
reality  as  this  being  would  conceive  it  from  our  standpoint. 
The  standard  of  truth  is  not  absolute  being,  but  perfect 
knowledge ;  and  error  consists  not  in  the  parallax  of  our 
thought  with  .being,  but  in  its  parallax  with  absolute 
thought.  For  us  God  is  such  a  perfect  intelligence ;  and 
hence  we  may  say  that  in  perception  the  aim  is  not  to  copy 
the  thing,  but  to  rethink  the  divine  thought  and  reproduce 
the  divine  intuition.  There  is  nothing  in  rational  idealism 
to  warrant  the  assumption  that  the  thought -side  of  the 
world-process  is  an  arbitrary  one,  or  that  the  process  may 
be  conceived  in  any  and  every  way.  Such  a  view  would 
declare  thought  essentially  unrelated  to  the  process,  and 
could  only  end  in  pure  idealism.  It  is,  then,  entirely  com- 
patible with  our  view  to  hold  that  the  thought-side  is  fixed 
and  universal.  Our  sensibility  may  be  differently  affected 
according  to  our  relations  to  the  process;  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  new  senses  should  reveal  new  qualities.  But 
these  qualities  would  only  be  modes  of  our  sensibility,  and 


476  METAPHYSICS. 

would  represent  no  fixed  nature  of  the  object,  but  only  the 
way  in  which  it  affects  our  feeling.  But  this  admission  is 
compatible  with  the  claim  that,  so  far  as  we  think  the  proc- 
ess under  the  categories  of  reason,  we  may  attain  to  strict 
universality.  The  decision  of  this  question  depends  upon 
our  faith  or  imfaith  in  the  mind's  power  to  reach  the  uni- 
versal. Here  we  content  ourselves  with  pointing  out  that 
idealism  is  compatible  with  the  strict  universality  of  thought 
and  intuition  ;  indeed,  it  is  the  only  doctrine  which  is  thus 
compatible. 

But  what  we  have  said  of  the  inability  of  thought  to 
transcend  itself  can  hardly  fail  to  leave  the  impression  that 
there  is  an  opaque  mystery  of  being  in  some  outlying  realm 
of  existence  from  which  thought  is  forever  shut  out.  And 
we  seem  to  have  left  the  divine  thought  also  in  the  same 
state  of  exclusion.  This  difficulty  arises  from  separating 
God  as  knower  from  God  as  doer.  The  basal  fact  of  the 
universe  is  a  self-conscious  agent.  As  agent,  he  maintains 
a  series  of  activities ;  and  as  knower,  he  gives  these  activi- 
ties the  form  of  the  world.  As  agent,  he  is  not  independent 
of  himself  as  knower ;  and  as  knower,  he  is  not  independent 
of  himself  as  agent.  The  divine  agency  has  the  forms  of 
intuition  only  in  the  divine  knowing;  and  the  divine  know- 
ing has  an  object  only  through  the  divine  agency.  Without 
either  of  these  elements  God  would  not  be  God.  He  must 
be  the  indivisible  synthesis  of  knowing  and  doing.  As 
reason,  he  is  real  only  through  the  act ;  and  as  actor,  he  is 
real  only  through  the  reason.  The  reason  gives  law  to  the 
act,  and  the  act  realizes  the  reason.  In  the  ontology  we 
forbade  all  attempts  to  analyze  the  notion  of  cause  into 
being  and  power,  as  if  these  could  be  separated  ;  so  here  we 
must  forbid  all  attempts  to  separate  between  God  as  agent 
and  God  as  knower.  He  is  the  absolute  unity  which  is  at 
once  reason  and  will,  knower  and  known.  With  regard  to 
the  world-process,  it  has  its  reality  in  the  divine  will,  and  its 
form  in  the  divine  thought ;  so  that  it  could  not  exist  apart 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          477 

from  either.  Here  we  come  again  on  the  old  antithesis  of 
matter  and  form.  These  are  absolutely  inseparable.  Will 
gives  the  matter,  and  thought  gives  the  form.  The  various 
stages  aud  states  of  the  world-process  have  a  definite  repre- 
sentative in  thought ;  and  our  thoughts  and  perceptions,  so 
far  as  valid,  are  to  be  viewed  as  sections  of  the  universal 
thought-aspect  of  reality  and  its  processes.  The  world,  then, 
is  no  individual  fiction,  but  is  a  proper  universal.  It  exists 
not  in  finite  thought  alone,  but  in  the  infinite  thought  and 
the  infinite  volition.  This  constitutes  its  reality  and  uni- 
versality, and  distinguishes  what  we  have  called  objective 
idealism,  or  proper  phenomenalism,  from  the  subjective 
idealism  of  the  empiricists.  A  common  conception  of  ideal- 
ism is  that  it  teaches  only  a  gigantic  and  continuous  sense- 
delusion  like  that  of  insane  persons  who  fill  space  with 
phantoms.  And  just  as  the  sane  see  that  space  to  be  empty 
which  to  the  madman  teems  with  demons,  so  the  mind,  per- 
cipient of  reality,  would  find  none  of  those  things  in  space 
which  we  seem  to  find.  The  complete  difference  of  our 
view  is  apparent.  For  us  space  is  as  real  as  the  phenomena 
in  it,  and  these  in  turn  are  as  real  as  the  space  in  which  they 
appear.  Both  alike  are  subjective ;  but  both  alike  are  uni- 
versal, in  that  they  are  phases  of  the  thought-side  of  reality 
and  are  valid  for  all  intelligence  from  the  particular  stand- 
point. 

By  the  world  -  process,  in  the  preceding  paragraphs,  we 
mean  only  that  process  which  underlies  the  so-called  mate- 
rial world  or  the  physical  system.  And  when  we  say  that 
this  process  has  its  reality  in  the  divine  will  and  its  form  in 
the  divine  thought,  and  that  these  two  factors  are  insepara- 
ble, we  mean  to  teach  no  theory  of  a  double-faced  substance 
after  the  fashion  of  Spinoza,  but  only  that  in  the  infinite 
knowing  and  willing  must  go  together.  The  finite  spirit 
must  be  excluded  entirely  from  the  cosmic  process,  as  being 
no  part  or  phase  of  it.  In  one  sense  the  finite  mind  belongs 
to  the  system,  and  in  another  sense  it  does  not.  When  by 


478  METAPHYSICS. 

the  system  we  mean  the  totality  of  the  infinite's  activity 
and  manifestation,  of  course  the  finite  mind  is  a  part  of  it. 
But  when  by  the  system  is  meant  only  that  part  of  the  in- 
finite's activity  which  underlies  the  physical  manifestation, 
then  the  finite  mind  is  no  part  of  the  system,  but  is  in  inter- 
action with  it.  Nor  can  we  allow  that  the  physical  side  of 
the  system  has  any  tendency  whatever  to  pass  into  or  pro- 
duce the  spiritual  side  as  found  in  finite  minds.  No  doubt 
it  would  seem  simpler  here  to  speak  of  a  single  process 
which  is  on  one  side  thought  and  on  the  other  side  act ;  but 
such  a  view  identifies  the  world  with  absolute  being,  and 
leaves  no  place  for  the  finite  spirit.  It  was  at  this  point 
that  German  idealism  passed  into  materialism.  All  finite 
life  and  consciousness  were  viewed  as  phases  of  the  one 
process  which,  in  its  ceaseless  on-going,  brings  alike  to  life 
and  death;  and  this  was  simply  materialism  expressed  in 
uncommon  words.  We  must  hold  in  opposition  that  there 
is  nothing  in  the  physical  process  which  tends  in  the  slight- 
est degree  to  pass  into  the  mental  by  any  logical  or  dynam- 
ic necessity ;  and  hence  that  the  spiritual  orders  of  creation 
are  something  superinduced  upon  the  physical.  To  the 
charge  that  this  is  dualism,  we  reply  that  the  opposite  view 
rests  upon  a  false  conception  of  unity.  Unity  does  not  con- 
sist in  playing  the  entire  oratorio  on  a  single  string ;  but  in 
the  accord  and  common  law  of  many.  The  unity  of  a  life 
does  not  consist  in  perpetually  doing  only  the  same  thing, 
but  in  subjecting  all  the  activities  to  a  common  plan.  So 
the  unity  of  nature,  or  of  creation,  consists  in  no  way  in  the 
deduction  of  everything  from  a  common  process,  but  in 
subjecting  everything  to  a  common  plan.  The  unity  of  the 
system  consists,  first,  in  the  metaphysical  unity  of  the  basal 
reality,  and  in  the  unity  of  plan  which  governs  all  creative 
activity  and  manifestation.  Doubtless  the  entire  system 
might  be  deduced  from  its  plan,  supposing  we  knew  it ;  but 
this  does  not  imply  that  there  may  not  be  new  beginnings 
all  along  the  line  of  the  process,  which  were  not  dynami- 


KEALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          479 

cally  implied  in  any  previous  state  of  the  system,  but  which 
were  logically  implied  in  the  basal  plan  of  the  whole.  And 
if  we  are  to  escape  materialism,  we  must  admit  a  double 
process  in  the  infinite — the  physical  process,  and  a  second 
process  whereby  the  finite  spirit  is  put  into  relation  to  that 
process,  and  is  thus  enabled  to  enter  into  the  divine  thought 
and  activity  as  shown  in  what  we  call  the  world. 

In  estimating  the  argument  of  this  chapter  we  must  re- 
member that  it  is  rooted  in  our  ontology,  and  cannot  be 
adequately  criticised  from  a  purely  psychological  standpoint. 
It  has,  doubtless,  been  a  surprise  to  the  reader  to  find  the 
common  order  of  thought  so  completely  inverted  as  it  is  in 
our  claim  that  the  infinite  is  the  most  certain  factor  in  ob- 
jective knowledge,  and  that  knowledge  of  the  objective 
finite  must  rest  upon  ethical  grounds  for  its  ultimate  assur- 
ance. This  seems  preposterous  in  any  case,  and  especially 
so  at  a  time  when  atheism  has  received  a  new  lease  of  life. 
Hence  a  theory  of  perception  into  which  God  enters  as  the 
chief  factor  must  be  a  very  doubtful  speculation.  In  reply 
to  these  scruples  we  must  recall  the  general  course  of  the 
whole  discussion.  In  the  earlier  part  of  the  work  we  under- 
took an  analysis  of  our  basal  notions  in  order  to  see  how  we 
must  think  them  in  order  to  make  them  self-consistent  and 
adequate  to  the  function  assigned  them  in  our  thought-sys- 
tem. This  analysis  was  quite  independent  of  the  question 
whether  reality  exists  or  not;  it  aimed  only  to  tell  how 
we  must  think  of  things  supposing  they  should  exist.  In 
this  inquiry  we  were  led  to  the  discovery  that  a  plurality 
of  things  cannot  be  ultimate,  but  that  they  must  exist  in 
dependence  upon  some  basal  and  unitary  world-ground  as 
their  conditioning  source.  From  this  time  on,  we  held  that 
the  ground  of  the  world  is  one ;  and  that  the  many,  if  the 
many  exist,  can  only  be  in  some  sense  a  function  of  this 
unitary  ground.  We  had  already  found  that  this  being 
must  be  conceived  as  an  agent,  and  on  further  inquiry  we 
discovered  that  thought  cannot  rest  in  any  other  concep- 


480  METAPHYSICS. 

tion  than  that  this  agent  is  personal,  free,  and  intelligent. 
Any  other  view  was  seen  to  be  suicidal  in  its  results ;  and 
theism  appeared  as  the  absolute  postulate  of  all  knowledge, 
science,  and  philosophy.  These  results  were  reached  by  a 
simple  analysis  of  thought  itself,  and  are  independent  of  all 
external  perception.  Thereafter  God  was  to  us  at  least  as 
certain  as  any  objective  fact  whatever.  We  then  came  to 
study  the  process  of  perception,  and  we  found  that,  unless 
we  were  to  content  ourselves  with  a  superficial  description 
of  our  mental  states,  our  psychology  must  be  subordinated 
to  our  metaphysics.  In  particular,  we  found  ourselves  com- 
pelled to  bring  the  process  under  the  general  head  of  inter- 
action, and  make  our  perceptions  effects  in  us.  But  what 
should  assure  us  that  they  were  more  ?  In  any  case  the  in- 
finite appears  as  the  real  objective  ground  of  our  sensations ; 
and  we  have  seen  that  if  these  sensations  were  given,  the 
world  of  finite  persons  and  things  might  fall  away  without 
our  missing  them.  Hence  we  had  to  say  that  God  is  the 
most  certain  fact  of  objective  knowledge,  and  that  knowl- 
edge of  the  objective  finite  must  rest  for  its  assurance  on 
an  ethical  trust  in  God.  Formal  truth  is  self  -sufficient. 
The  testimony  of  consciousness  to  our  own  states  cannot  be 
impugned.  The  necessity  of  affirming  the  infinite  can  be 
demonstrated.  The  necessity  of  viewing  the  infinite  as  free 
and  intelligent,  and  hence  as  personal,  is  likewise  demon- 
strable if  we  are  to  escape  scepticism  of  reason  itself.  But 
the  finite,  as  other  than  a'phenomenal  fact,  must  be  received 
by  faith.  Cosmic  knowledge,  as  distinct  from  a  knowledge 
of  our  own  presentations,  is  not  self-sufficing,  but  rests  on 
an  ethical  basis.  This  is  a  curious  reversal  of  current  views, 
but  there  is  no  help  for  it.  Thus  trust  in  God  appears  as 
the  factor  without  which  no  tenable  theory  of  truly  objec- 
tive perception  can  be  constructed.  Psychology  alone  does 
not  even  touch  the  problem,  but  merely  tells  us  what  we 
believe,  without  saying  why.  References  to  instinct  explain 
nothing,  and  simply  postpone  the  question.  Metaphysics 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          481 

but  makes  the  problem  and  its  difficulties  clear.  Only 
ethics  can  solve  it.  By  judiciously  ignoring  the  difficulty, 
by  ad-captandum  appeals  to  common-sense,  and,  above  all, 
by  begging  the  question,  such  a  solution  may  be  made  to 
seem  both  unnecessary  and  absurd ;  but  such  a  procedure 
is  not  compatible  with  either  clear  thought  or  mental  in- 
tegrity. 

Having  thus  secured  some  ground  for  trust  in  objective 
and  universal  knowledge,  it  next  remained  to  inquire  what 
kind  of  a  world  our  faculties  give.  The  phenomenal  world 
needs  no  description,  and  to  spontaneous  thought  seems  to 
be  a  self-sufficing  fact.  Reflection,  however,  served  to  show 
that  this  fact  could  not  be  final.  Much  of  it  had  to  be 
handed  over  to  subjectivity  as  simply  our  way  of  looking  at 
the  world-process.  But  these  subjective  elements  did  not, 
because  subjective,  appear  to  be  delusions.  On  the  contrary, 
it  seemed  possible  to  regard  them  as  universal  though  sub- 
jective, or  as  representing  the  universal  thought-side  of  the 
cosmos  and  its  processes.  Our  final  conclusion  was  that  if 
the  world  be  other  than  a  presentation,  it  can  only  be  a 
mode  of  divine  energizing  which  has  its  reality  in  the  divine 
will,  and  its  form  in  the  divine  thought.  In  that  case,  in 
so  far  as  we  have  any  knowledge  of  it,  we  rethink  the  divine 
thought  and  reproduce  the  divine  intuition. 

But  if  this  view  is  to  be  maintained,  another  assumption 
must  be  made.  Sensations  are  the  raw  material  of  knowl- 
edge, the  incitements  which  lead  the  mind  to  a  construction 
of  its  objects.  But  sensations  seem  to  be  arbitrarily  con- 
nected with  the  physical  system.  There  is  no  assignable 
reason  why  a  sensation  should  attend  one  form  of  physical 
movement  or  action  rather  than  any  other  whatever.  Be- 
sides, there  is  nothing  in  sensation  itself  which  favors  one 
kind  of  cause  rather  than  another.  But  if  the  resulting 
knowledge  is  to  have  any  universal  validity,  or  is  to  reveal 
to  us  the  world-process  as  it  exists  in  the  absolute  thought, 
then  these  sensations  must  be  so  adjusted  on  the  one  side  to 
31 


482  METAPHYSICS. 

that  process,  and  on  the  other  to  the  nature  of  the  finite 
mind,  that  the  resulting  construction  must  lie  parallel  to 
the  absolute  thought  of  the  system.  Without  this  assump- 
tion of  an  exact  adjustment  of  heterogeneous  elements,  our 
cosmic  knowledge  loses  all  claim  to  universality.  But,  com- 
plex as  this  assumption  seems,  it  must  be  made  by  every 
system  which  rejects  pure  presentationism.  If  not  made, 
then  similar  sensations  do  riot  point  to  similarity  of  cause 
and  relation,  and  unlike  causes  have  like  effects.  In  that 
case  every  possibility  of  objective  knowledge  falls  away, 
and  scientific  reasoning  about  the  cosmos  and  its  forms  is  at 
an  end.  It  is  very  common  to  hear  the  physicist  declaring 
that  -we  know  directly  nothing  but  phenomena,  and  that 
these  phenomena  are  totally  unlike  the  things  which  under- 
lie them.  But  it  is  equally  common  to  hear  him  speaking 
with  great  confidence  of  things  which  are  not  and  never  can 
be  phenomenal.  Yet  if  the  phenomena  are  quite  unlike 
the  things,  what  shall  warrant  us  in  concluding  from  them 
to  things?  Plainly  such  conclusions  are  absurd  without 
the  implicit  assumption  that  the  subjective  phenomenal  ele- 
ments are  accurately  adjusted  to  the  objective  noumenal 
realities.  If  we  admit  nothing  but  our  own  thought-proc- 
ess, we  are  egoists.  If  we  find  this  view  absurd,  and  admit 
other  thought-processes  than  our  own,  then,  in  order  to  make 
personal  communion  possible  and  trustworthy,  we  have  to 
affirm  an  exact  adjustment  between  these  processes  and  the 
mechanism  of  communication.  Finally,  if  we  admit  a  world- 
process,  we  have  also  to  affirm  an  exact  adjustment  of  sen- 
sation to  the  world  -  process  on  the  one  hand  and  to  the 
thought-process  on  the  other.  "We  do  not,  however,  make 
complexity  by  this  theory ;  we  only  recognize  the  complex- 
ity which  really  exists.  This  general  assumption  is  only  a 
special  case  of  that  part  of  the  doctrine  of  the  pre-estab- 
lished harmony  which  we  have  seen  is  a  necessary  factor 
of  every  system  which  understands  its  own  meaning.  For 
all  interaction  there  must  be  an  exact  quantitative  and 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          483 

qualitative  adjustment  of  each  to  each,  or  chaos  will  be  the 
result. 


The  idealism  which  we  have  expounded  is  essentially  that 
of  Kant,  although  we  differ  from  Kant  in  his  denial  of 
noumenal  knowledge.  The  general  method  is  that  of  Her- 
bart,  who  developed  the  realistic  side  of  the  Kantian  phi- 
losophy. But  the  most  pretentious  form  of  idealism  has  not 
been  mentioned.  This  is  the  absolute  idealism  of  the  later 
German  speculators.  Kant's  philosophy  could  not  stay 
where  it  stopped,  but  either  the  realistic  or  the  idealistic 
factor  must  be  given  up.  Kant  himself  certainly  thought 
it  possible  to  retain  both,  but  he  combined  them  so  unfortu- 
nately that  while  one  cannot  become  a  Kantian  without 
being  a  realist,  one  cannot  remain  a  Kantian  and  retain  real- 
ism. His  basal  distinction  of  phenomena  and  noumena  im- 
plies both  elements.  But,  unluckily,  his  denial  of  objective 
significance  to  the  categories  left  the  noumena  without  any 
ground  of  existence.  Causation,  reality,  substance,  inter- 
action, are  categories,  and  have  only  a  subjective  validity. 
But  since  we  pass  to  the  outer  world  only  by  the  bridge  of 
causality,  there  can  be  no  reason  for  affirming  things  apart 
from  the  mind  when  this  bridge  is  broken  down.  The 
mind  is  self-determining,  and  produces  its  objects  from  itself. 
At  this  parting  of  the  ways  the  development  of  Kant's  phi- 
losophy took  a  double  direction.  Herbart  and  his  followers 
developed  the  realistic  side;  and  Fichte,  Schelling,  and 
Hegel  developed  the  idealistic  side. 

If  we  take  Kant's  doctrine  of  the  categories  in  earnest, 
the  mind  is  all,  and  must  develop  its  own  objects.  Accord- 
ingly Fichte  set  out  to  show  how  and  why  the  mind  fur- 
nishes itself  with  objects.  He  showed  how  the  ego  must 
posit  itself,  and  how,  in  order  to  do  this,  it  must  limit  itself 
— that  is,  must  give  itself  objects.  In  this  self-position  and 
self-limitation  Fichte  finds  the  origin  of  the  objective  world. 
This  world  is  not  something  ontologically  diverse  from  the 


454:  METAPHYSICS. 

ego,  but  only  a  mode  of  limitation  whereby  the  ego  comes 
to  self-consciousness.  But  if  we  take  terms  in  their  common 
meaning,  this  implies  that  any  individual  mind  creates  its 
objects  entirely  from  itself  and  without  any  incitement  from 
without ;  indeed,  a  good  many  of  Fichte's  critics  understood 
him  to  mean  that  he  was  the  absolute  creator  of  his  own 
universe.  Kant's  doctrine  could  lead  to  nothing  but  this ; 
but  this  view  was  too  absurd  for  any  patience.  Hence 
Fichte  declared  that  by  the  ego  he  did  not  mean  the  indi- 
vidual and  empirical  ego,  but  the  transcendental  ego.  But 
what  this  ego  might  be  he  was  not  at  pains  to  state  very 
clearly.  For  the  most  part,  he  seems  to  have  meant  by  it 
the  universal  reason,  and  this  is  a  pure  abstraction  from  the 
mental  operations  of  thinking  beings,  who  are  the  only  real- 
ities. Fichte  is  as  inconsequent  as  Kant.  After  having 
made  a  great  show  of  logic  in  denying  any  external  ground 
of  our  sensations,  he  saves  himself  from  pure  egoism  by  the 
fiction  of  a  transcendental  ego  which  is  the  reality  in  all 
individual  and  finite  egos ;  and  this  fiction  is  reached  in  de- 
fiance of  all  logic. 

But  the  development  did  not  stop  with  Fichte.  It  went 
on  dropping  element  after  element  of  reality  until  in  the 
Hegelian  school  thought  was  identified  with  being,  and  the 
attempt  was  made  to  deduce  the  universe  from  the  bare  no- 
tion of  existence.  In  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  term  this 
doctrine  is  absurd ;  and  hence  to  make  the  proposed  identi- 
fication we  must  take  the  words  out  of  their  proper  signifi- 
cation. When  we  declare  that  thought  is  being,  we  cannot 
mean  by  thought  a  simple  conception,  for  this  would  be  the 
extremest  nonsense.  In  that  case  our  thoughts  would  be 
things.  Or  if  we  prefer  to  say  that  pure  thinking  is  being, 
we  must  mean  by  pure  thinking  something  more  than  the 
process  of  comparing,  judging,  and  inferring,  which  we  com- 
monly call  thinking;  for  this  is  not  being,  but  only  a  move- 
ment in  the  mind.  Besides,  both  thought  and  thinking,  as 
thus  used,  imply  a  thinker  as  their  subject  and  the  ground 


EEALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND  PHENOMENALISM.          485 

of  their  possibility.  Sometimes  pure  thought  is  identified 
with  the  system  of  categories,  and  these  again  are  identified 
with  being.  The  ground  of  this  procedure  is  the  fact  that 
if  there  is  to  be  any  knowledge  of  being,  the  categories  of 
thought  must  also  be  categories  of  being.  But  this  fact  does 
not  justify  the  identification ;  for  it  only  says  that  thought 
must  be  able  to  know  being  or  to  grasp  its  content.  The 
categories  as  conceived  are  thoughts  only  and  not  existences. 
The  ineffable  difference  between  thought  and  thing  remains 
untranscended  and  unexplained.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
attempt  to  show  how  that  which  exists  as  conception  in  our 
minds  can  take  its  place  in  the  world  as  real.  We  have  sim- 
ply an  analysis  of  the  content  of  reason  or  of  formal  truth, 
and  no  proper  identification  of  thought  and  reality.  But  this 
formal  truth  is  lumped  together  in  the  general  term  reason, 
and  reason  is  hypostasized  into  the  supreme  and  only  reality. 
There  is  throughout  a  failure  to  name  the  thinking  subject, 
apart  from  which  neither  truth  nor  reason  has  any  signifi- 
cance. The  concrete  and  living  person  disappears,  and  in 
its  place  is  put  the  abstraction  of  an  idea  or  a  system  of 
ideas.  The  treatment  is  logical  rather  than  psychological 
or  metaphysical ;  and  the  utmost  result  is  to  show  a  kind  of 
connection  among  our  fundamental  ideas.  Reality  is  not 
constructed,  but  reason  is  analyzed. 

But  supposing  that  the  mystery  of  being  cannot  be  de- 
duced, it  is  still  possible  that  the  various  forms  of  existence 
can  be  evolved  from  thought.  If  the  categories  of  thought 
are  categories  of  being,  it  is  possible  that  an  analysis  of  these 
categories  would  reveal  what  must  be  true  in  being.  How 
the  content  of  reason  is  enabled  to  be  real  rather  than  con- 
ceptual may  be  passed  by  as  an  insoluble  problem,  but  it 
would  be  a  great  thing  to  show  that  the  actual  system  is  a 
necessary  part  of  that  content.  This  also  the  absolute  ideal- 
ists sought  to  do.  We  have  referred  to  this  attempt  in  dis- 
cussing the  various  apriori  cosmologies.  We  there  found 
that  the  utmost  that  could  be  reached  by  an  analysis  of 


486  METAPHYSICS. 

thought  would  be  a  formal  outline  of  a  possible  system,  but 
no  insight  whatever  into  the  actual  system.  "VVe  further 
found  that  even  the  categories  themselves  admit  of  no  de- 
duction or  construction  by  thought,  but  have  rather  to  be 
accepted  by  thought  as  something  given.  Being,  change, 
cause,  space,  time,  etc.,  are  data  of  thought,  not  constructions 
by  thought.  They  are  as  impenetrable  in  their  possibility 
and  connection  as  they  are  necessary  in  their  affirmation. 
The  sensitive  and  emotional  side  of  our  nature  is  equally 
inaccessible  to  a  thought-construction.  Here  thought  but 
recognizes  and  gives  form  to  a  content  which  it  could  never 
generate  of  itself.  Both  the  categories  of  thought  and  the 
content  of  the  sensibility  are  data  of  the  rational  process, 
and  are  by  no  means  its  products.  The  understanding  sup- 
plies the  name  and  the  logical  form  of  these  elements,  but 
for  the  meaning  we  have  always  to  fall  back  upon  an  imme- 
diate experience  or  intuition.  Thus  the  absolute  idealism 
fails  in  both  of  its  aims.  It  neither  secures  any  intelligible 
identification  of  thought  with  being,  nor  does  it  deduce  the 
actual  features  of  the  system  as  necessary  implications  tof 
reason.  Finally,  the  doctrine  could  only  result  in  a  static 
pantheism,  like  that  of  the  Eleatics.  The  consequences  and 
implications  of  reason  are  as  changeless  and  eternal  as  reason 
itself.  "With  rational  truths  time  has  naught  to  do,  but  all 
alike  coexist  forever.  Such  a  system  excludes  all  movement 
and  progress  ;  and  the  appearance  of  movement  can  only  be 
reckoned  a  delusion.  That  this  system  should  ever  have 
given  itself  out  as  a  system  of  development  is  a  most  ex- 
traordinary inconsequence. 

But  insufficient  as  we  find  the  doctrine  of  the  absolute 
idealists,  we  must  admit  that  the  problem  at  which  they 
wrought  demands  a  solution.  Thought  cannot  transcend 
itself.  It  can  deal  with  reality  only  through  ideas.  All 
our  scientific  effort  is  but  an  attempt  to  bring  certain  ideas 
awakened  in  us  by  experience  into  a  rational  order;  and 
when  we  have  brought  these  ideas  into  such  connection 


REALISM,  IDEALISM,  AND   PHENOMENALISM.        437 

that  we  see  how  one  set  must  give  rise  to  another  set,  or  how 
one  order  of  phenomena  must  be  followed  by  another  order 
of  phenomena,  we  have  done  all  that  we  can  ever  hope  to  do. 
But  all  the  while  we  are  doing  nothing  but  systematizing 
our  own  conceptions.  In  the  Introduction  we  referred  to 
two  orders  of  mental  movement,  one  of  experience  and  one 
of  reason.  The  work  of  science  consists  solely  in  trans- 
forming the  order  of  experience  into  the  order  of  reason,  or 
in  replacing  the  factual  and  opaque  conjunctions  of  experi- 
ence by  the  rational  and  transparent  conjunctions  of  thought. 
Thought  seeks  thought  everywhere.  For  the  reflective 
mind,  nature  is  not  the  complex  of  external  things,  but  the 
reason  in  things.  Even  when  we  recognize  a  system  inde- 
pendent of  ourselves,  our  aim  is  still  to  think  the  thought 
expressed  in  it.  And  since  thought  can  never  transcend 
thinking,  there  must  arise,  first,  an  unwillingness  to  admit 
anything  beyond  itself,  and,  second,  a  desire  to  generate  all 
its  objects  in  its  own  self-enclosed  movement.  Thus  the 
finite  mind  comes  into  difficulties.  On  the  one  hand,  it 
cannot  view  itself  as  the  independent  generator  of  its  ob- 
jects ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  admit  any  exist- 
ence which  is  essentially  unrelated  to  thought.  The  only 
solution  of  the  problem  lies  in  the  theistic  conception.  First, 
we  must  hold  that  the  system  of  things  is  essentially  a  thought- 
system.  It  is,  however,  not  merely  a  thought,  but  a  thought 
realized  in  act.  As  such  it  is  real ;  and  as  such,  it  is  trans- 
parent to  thought.  Our  actual  thinking  may  not  grasp  it ; 
but,  as  an  expression  of  thought,  it  is  ever  open  to  the  pene- 
tration of  intelligence.  It  may  be  unknown  ;  it  cannot  be 
essentially  unknowable.  Second,  we  must  hold  that  in  the 
absolute  person  knowing  and  being  are  coextensive.  In  the 
divine  knowing  all  is  transparent,  as  in  the  divine  doing  all 
is  real.  In  no  other  conception  can  the  mind  find  relief 
from  an  untenable  idealism  on  the  one  hand,  or  from  a  sui- 
cidal doctrine  of  the  unknowable  on  the  other,  or  rather  from 
a  dreary  and  endless  oscillation  between  them. 


488  METAPHYSICS. 


CHAPTER  IY. 

APPJORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM. 

AGAIN  and  again  we  have  had  occasion  to  point  out  that 
thought  can  never  transcend  thinking,  and  that  we  can  deal 
with  reality  only  through  the  conception.  This  insight  has 
further  led  us  to  affirm  that  the  only  intelligible  aim  of 
knowing  is,  to  reach  the  universal  in  thought — that  is,  to 
reach  such  convictions  as  are  based  on  the  nature  of  reason 
itself,  and  not  on  any  peculiarities  of  the  individual.  But, 
to  justify  such  a  view,  we  must  assume  that  reason  is  one 
and  universal.  And  this  the  human  mind  has  generally 
done.  We  do  not  speak  of  our  reason  or  of  our  truth,  but 
simply  of  reason  and  truth.  The  proposition  to  make  either 
individual  could  not  fail  to  be  regarded  as  an  abandonment 
of  both.  As  the  conscience  will  not  tolerate  a  relativity  of 
duty,  so  the  intellect  will  not  tolerate  a  relativity  of  truth. 
Truth  is  absolute  or  nothing.  This  is  tacitly  admitted,  even 
by  the  defenders  of  relativity,  for  they  all  alike  appeal  to 
reason,  and  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  whoever  will  listen 
candidly  to  their  arguments  will  find  himself  rationally  com- 
pelled to  admit  that  the  doctrine  of  relativity  is  absolute 
truth.  Not  many  of  them  are  so  far  gone  in  self-conceit  as 
to  assume  that  their  simple  assurance  is  sufficient  proof  of 
their  views ;  on  the  contrary,  they  propose  to  appeal  to  rea- 
son, and  by  such  appeals  to  prove  them.  But,  as  this  is  a 
crucial  and  much  debated  point,  perhaps  we  cannot  do  bet- 
ter, in  bringing  our  studies  to  a  close,  than  to  examine  the 
opposing  opinions ;  although  the  subject  belongs  rather  to 
the  theory  of  knowledge  than  to  metaphysics. 


APRIORISM  AXD  EMPIRICISM.  489 

The  debate  on  this  question  is  one  of  the  perennial  philo- 
sophical discussions.  Some  there  are  who  hold  that  the 
inind  is  such  a  citizen  of  the  universe  that  it  is  able  to  know 
some  things  on  its  own  account.  These  persons  are  called 
intuitionists,  apriorists,  transcendentalists.  As  teaching  a 
power  of  mental  insight,  they  are  called  intuitionists.  As 
teaching  that  we  can  know  some  things  in  advance  of  expe- 
rience, they  are  called  apriorists.  As  teaching  that  the  mind 
can  transcend  its  particular  experiences,  and  reach  universal 
truth,  they  are  called  transcendentalists.  Others  there  are, 
on  the  other  hand,  who  view  the  mind  as  a  learner  only, 
and  who  make  experience  the  sole  source  of  knowledge. 
As  holding  this  view,  they  are  called  empiricists.  But  if 
the  mind  contributes  nothing,  experience  reduces  to  sensa- 
tion, and  the  empiricist  becomes  a  sensationalist.  But,  with- 
out some  principle  of  movement  and  grouping,  the  sensa- 
tions would  lie  inert  in  the  mind.  This  principle  the  em- 
piricist finds  in  association,  and  hence  he  is  called  an  associ- 
ationalist.  But  the  title  of  empiricist,  or  experience-philos- 
opher, must  not  mislead  us  into  thinking  that  the  speculators 
appeal  to  present  experience  to  get  their  facts.  On  the  con- 
trary, no  school  of  thinkers  ever  existed  who  paid  less  atten- 
tion to  the  facts  of  mind  as  it  is,  for  the  appearances  are  all 
in  favor  of  the  intuitional  view,  that  the  mind  can  know 
some  things  on  its  own  account.  Hence  the  claim  of  the 
empiricists  is  not  that  their  views  are  supported  by  con- 
scious experience,  but,  rather,  that  all  that  is  in  the  mind, 
whether  of  faculty  or  belief,  is  the  product  of  experience. 
Appeals  to  consciousness  are  especially  distasteful  to  them, 
as  they  hold  that  consciousness  itself,  even  in  its  simplest 
utterances,  is  a  product  from  which  the  traces  of  growth 
have  disappeared.  And  yet,  under  the  misleading  influence 
of  the  name  and  a  certain  innate  ambiguity  in  the  doctrine, 
they  have  often  persuaded  both  themselves  and  others  that 
they  are  pre-eminently  the  inductive  students  of  mental 
science.  In  this  way  the  name  of  the  school  has  given  it 


490  METAPHYSICS. 

undue  influence,  and  has  enabled  it  to  appropriate  some  of 
the  prestige  of  physical  science.  But  the  true  inductive 
student  is  content  to  let  the  mind  be  what  it  reveals  itself 
to  be,  without  attempting  to  force  any  preconceived  theory 
upon  it.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that,  on  one  point, 
the  empiricist  generally  turns  apriorist.  For,  unless  he  have 
au  apriori  knowledge  that  the  mind  cannot  have  apriori 
knowledge,  it  is  hard  to  justify  the  distortion  of  actual  ex- 
perience which  lie  sometimes  resorts  to  in  order  to  carry 
through  his  speculative  theory  of  intellect. 

In  discussing  this  question,  two  points  must  be  kept  dis- 
tinct :  (1)  the  forms  of  intellect  and  the  corresponding  forms 
of  experience ;  and,  (2),  the  ultimate  warrant  of  knowledge. 
"With  regard  to  the  first  point,  the  intuitionist  holds  that  the 
form  is  essential  to  the  mind,  and  is  contributed  by  the  mind 
to  experience.  The  empiricist  holds  that  the  form,  in  both 
cases,  is  the  product  of  sensations  and  their  laws.  The  for- 
mer, then,  seeks  to  show  that  experience  is  impossible  with- 
out some  principle  of  form  in  the  mind,  and  the  latter  seeks 
to  show  that  form  and  faculty  alike  are  the  outcome  of  sen- 
sation. With  regard  to  the  second  point,  the  intuitionist 
claims  that  the  ultimate  test  and  warrant  of  rational  truth 
are  to  be  found  in  the  mind  itself,  or  in  its  own  native  pow- 
er to  know.  The  empiricist,  on  the  other  hand,  holds  that 
the  only  warrant  for  believing  anything  whatever  is  the  fact 
that  it  is  found  to  be  valid  in  our  particular  experiences. 
These  two  points,  though  quite  distinct,  have  seldom  been 
clearly  separated  by  the  disciples  of  either  school,  and  thus 
differences  have  arisen  within  the  two  schools.  Some  intu- 
itiouists  have  devoted  themselves  entirely  to  proving  that 
form  and  faculty  are  innate  or  essential  in  the  mind,  and 
have  given  no  thought  to  the  second  question.  But  that 
their  conclusion  from  innateness  to  universality  is  hasty 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  Kant  made  the  existence  of 
innate  faculties  and  forms  the  ground  for  denying  absolute 
knowledge.  Thus  one  may  be  an  intuitiouist  as  to  the  ori- 


APEIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  491 

gin  of  faculty,  and  a  relativist  or  agnostic  with  regard  to 
knowledge.  Among  the  empiricists,  also,  we  find  diversity 
of  aim  and  purpose.  Some — as  Condillac  and  Spencer — 
confine  their  attention  chiefly  to  the  genesis  of  faculty  and 
belief.  They  seek  to  identify  all  the  mental  functions — 
such  as  memory,  reason,  judgment,  conscience,  etc. — as  mod- 
ifications of  the  common  process  of  sensation.  Empiricists 
of  this  type  abound  in  appeals  to  heredity,  and  regard  the 
law  of  evolution  as  having  profound  significance  for  the 
problem,  especially  because  it  furnishes  them  with  the  time 
needed  to  work  the  desired  transformations.  Other  empir- 
icists, again,  as  Mill,  regard  such  speculations  as  philosoph- 
ically irrelevant.  Chauncey  "Wright,  in  a  review  of  Spen- 
cer, dealt  very  severely  with  him  for  fancying  that  the  doc- 
trine of  heredity  alters  the  case  in  the  least.  At  bottom, 
he  says,  the  crucial  question  is  not  how  we  come  to  believe, 
but  why  we  believe.  The  intuitionist  says,  we  believe  be- 
cause we  see  the  truth ;  the  empiricist  says,  we  believe  be- 
cause we  have  found  the  proposition  believed  valid  in  past 
experience.  Here,  then,  emerges  again  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  causes  and  the  grounds  of  belief  to  which  we 
have  referred  in  the  Introduction.  The  debate  involves 
two  questions,  one  psychological,  the  other  logical  or  philo- 
sophical. The  genesis  of  belief  is  distinct  from  the  grounds 
for  believing. 

In  the  earlier  forms  of  the  empirical  doctrine,  none  of 
these  questions  were  distinguished.  Even  experience  itself 
had  no  clear  meaning.  In  general,  it  meant  the  view  of 
things  which  is  held  by  spontaneous  and  uncritical  thought. 
The  empiricists  of  Locke's  school  did  not  doubt  that  expe- 
rience gives  us  a  world  of  substantial  things,  and  all  the  cat- 
egories of  thought,  as  space,  causation,  etc.  Locke  even  held 
that  the  law  of  identity  is  established  by  experience.  With 
this  outfit,  they  found  it  very  easy  to  make  the  mind  purely 
passive  in  knowing.  Sensations  were  viewed  as  copies  of 
the  thing,  and  these  were  supposed  to  be  imported  ready- 


492  METAPHYSICS. 

made  into  the  mind.  Then,  as  to  their  combinations,  they 
are  given  combined  in  sense-experience,  and  are  firmly  held 
together  by  association.  Thus  we  reach  at  once  a  copy  of 
the  world  as  it  is  ;  and,  because  of  the  apparent  iinmediate- 
ness  of  perception,  the  theory  had  great  plausibility  with  the 
unthinking.  But  it  was  based  entirely  upon  a  flat  and  un- 
critical notion  of  the  process  of  knowledge.  Berkeley  and 
Hume  showed  that  less  is  given  in  experience  than  common- 
sense  had  assumed,  and  that  experience  must  be  restricted 
to  sensation.  But  no  analysis  of  sensation  reveals  any  trace 
of  substance  or  causation.  Finally,  Kant  showed  that  the 
experience  to  which  the  empiricists  had  been  accustomed  to 
appeal  is  itself  impossible,  except  through  a  constructive  ac- 
tion of  the  mind,  according  to  certain  apriori  principles. 
We  have  seen,  in  studying  perception,  that  it  must  be  brought 
under  the  notion  of  interaction,  and  that  all  our  knowledge 
of  the  outer  world,  both  the  framework  and  the  filling-up 
alike,  is  an  expression  of  the  mind's  inner  nature ;  and  we 
have  further  seen  that  the  constructive  action  of  the  mind 
is  such  as  to  give  the  system  qualities  which  it  has  only  in 
the  mind  itself.  This  is  so  much  the  case  that  the  Kantian, 
the  relativist,  and  the  agnostic  agree  that  we  can  know  noth- 
ing as  it  is.  The  activity  of  the  mind  is  such,  according  to 
these  theorists,  that  it  completely  masks  the  true  nature  and 
relations  of  the  object,  and  renders  them  forever  inaccessible 
to  our  thought.  Any  of  these  views  explodes  the  crude  em- 
piricism of  the  Lockian  sensationalists.  Indeed,  even  the 
subjectivity  of  sense-qualities  is  incompatible  with  the  com- 
plete passivity  of  the  mind.  In  any  case,  our  thought  of 
the  world  is  composed  entirely  of  subjective  elements,  and 
in  this  sense  the  whole  of  our  knowledge  is  apriori.  The 
universe  in  interaction  with  a  physical  element  produces 
motion  and  physical  change.  The  universe  in  interaction 
with  a  mental  subject  produces  thought,  feeling,  and  a  world- 
vision.  The  different  result  in  the  latter  case  depends  upon 
the  peculiar  nature  of  the  mind.  No  matter  how  real  the 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  493 

outer  world  may  be,  it  can  be  reached  only  through  a  cor- 
responding world  within.  The  further  fact  with  which  our 
study  has  made  us  familiar,  that,  to  a  large  extent,  the  mind 
creates  the  world  it  sees,  deprives  this  crudest  form  of  sen- 
sationalism of  every  semblance  of  credit.  That  form  was 
based  on  the  passivity  of  the  mind  in  knowledge,  and  on  the 
assumed  similarity  of  the  mental  copy  to  the  outward  object. 
It  falls,  of  course,  when  these  assumptions  are  rejected.  The 
only  claim  which  can  be  tolerated,  even  as  an  hypothesis,  is, 
that  sensations  themselves  are  the  only  apriori  element  in 
the  mind,  and  that  they  and  their  laws  serve  to  explain  all 
the  laws  and  forms  of  thought. 

Empiricism  of  the  crude  type  has  always  had  strong 
tendencies  towards  materialism.  It  cannot  consistently  al- 
low the  reality  of  the  mind,  without  admitting  that  the 
nature  of  the  mind  must  be  a  determining  factor  of  knowl- 
edge ;  and  conversely,  the  denial  of  the  mind  as  such  a  fac- 
tor could  not  logically  stop  short  of  denying  the  reality  of 
the  mind  altogether.  That  which  has  no  definite  nature 
fixing  the  modes  of  its  activity  is  nothing.  But,  while  em- 
piricism leads  to  materialism,  materialism  is  incompatible 
with  empiricism,  as  we  have  shown  in  speaking  of  the  mate- 
rialistic theory  of  knowledge.  The  materialist,  we  said, 
builds  on  the  conception  of  fixed  elements  with  fixed  laws ; 
and  this  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to  view  the  laws  of 
thought  as  in  any  way  adventitious.  On  the  contrary,  he 
must  hold  that  the  laws  of  thought  are  just  as  fixed  in  the 
nature  of  matter  as  the  law  of  gravity  or  of  chemical  affini- 
ty. For  the  materialist,  no  experience  whatever  is  needed 
for  the  profoundest  mental  insight,  but  only  the  production 
of  the  appropriate  organism.  Nor  can  the  materialist  speak 
of  learning  from  experience ;  for  to  learn  in  this  way  we 
must  stand  apart  from  the  experience  and  reason  upon  it, 
and  thus  deduce  principles  for  our  future  guidance.  But 
all  this  is  impossible  in  materialism.  We  do  not  have  ex- 
perience; we  are  the  experience.  And  whatever  passes  in 


49:1  METAPHYSICS. 

the  mind  is  purely  the  outcome  of  what  the  organism  is  at 
the  moment.  In  short,  materialism  is  incompatible  with 
anything  but  the  highest  form  of  apriorism.  It  must 
always  hold  that,  when  thinking  does  take  place,  it  is  a  man- 
ifestation of  the  inner  nature  of  matter;  and  hence  it  must 
hold  that  the  laws  of  mental  manifestation  are  as  fixed  as 
the  laws  of  physical  manifestation.  That  the  same  conclu- 
sion holds  for  every  system  of  necessity  is  evident.  Every 
such  system  must  build  on  the  notion  of  fixed  law,  and 
hence  it  must  hold  that  all  forms  of  manifestation  are  but 
the  outcome  of  the  fixed  and  changeless  necessities  of  being. 
There  is  no  reason  in  such  systems  why  knowledge  might 
not  begin  at  the  highest  point  and  with  a  host  of  intuitions. 
It  is  very  common,  indeed,  to  find  empiricism  combined 
with  materialism,  but  their  incompatibility  is  evident.  Apri- 
orism must  be  allowed  to  be  far  more  in  harmony  with  all 
our  modes  of  thinking  than  empiricism.  We  regard  all  the 
physical  and  chemical  elements  as  having  a  distinct  and 
definite  nature  of  their  own,  which  nature,  moreover,  deter- 
mines all  the  outgo  of  the  elements.  It  would  provoke  a 
smile,  if  an  empiricist  should  propose  to  view  the  laws  of 
the  elements  as  inherited,  acquired,  or  the  result  of  habit 
and  experience.  The  intuitionist  only  applies  the  same 
general  principle  when  he  thinks  of  the  mind  as  a  reality 
with  a  fixed  law  of  its  own.  The  apriori  conception,  we  re- 
peat, is  far  more  accordant  with  the  established  methods  of 
thought  than  the  empirical  view.  But,  before  seeking  to 
decide  between  the  theories,  it  will  be  well  to  expound  apri- 
orism, or  the  intuitional  conception. 

The  intuitional  doctrine  was  originally  known  as  the  doc- 
trine of  innate  ideas.  This  phrase  was  unfortunate,  and  led 
to  a  mistaken  polemic  on  the  part  of  the  empiricists,  and 
one  which  even  yet  has  not  ceased.  They  fancied  that  the 
doctrine  is  that  all  men  are  born  with  a  certain  stock  of  full- 
blown ideas,  or  intuitions,  which  appear  in  every  conscious- 
ness, so  that  whatever  else  one  may  be  ignorant  of,  one  knows 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  495 

that  space  must  be  infinite,  time  eternal,  that  there  can  be 
no  accidents  without  a  substance,  and  no  event  without  a 
cause.  Probably  many  extravagant  utterances  on  the  part 
of  intuitionists  may  have  seemed  to  affirm  such  a  doctrine ; 
but  in  general  a  scanty  amount  of  fairness  and  a  still  scanti- 
er amount  of  insight  would  have  served  to  show  that  no 
such  view  was  held  by  intuitionists.  All  that  intuitionists, 
in  general,  have  ever  held  is,  that  the  mind  is  such  that, 
when  roused  to  activity  by  continued  contact  with  the  outer 
world,  it  will  necessarily  develop  certain  forms  of  activity 
from  which  certain  principles,  or  mental  formulas,  may  be 
abstracted.  These  principles  will  not  be  imported  into  the 
mind,  but  will  be  expressions  of  the  mind's  own  nature.  As 
such  they  will  be  innate,  not  something  acquired  from  with- 
out, but  something  developed  from  within.  The  intuition- 
ists further  hold  that  though  such  principles  may  be  reached 
only  through  experience,  they  are  independent  of  experi- 
ence for  their  verification,  and,  indeed,  that  they  cannot  be 
strictly  verified  by  experience.  In  this  independence  and 
self -verification,  the  intuitionist  finds  the  distinguishing 
mark  of  apriori  truth.  But  the  mistake  of  the  empiricists, 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  doctrine,  set  them  to  rummaging 
in  the  minds  of  babies  and  idiots  and  savages  for  failing 
cases ;  and  every  such  failing  case  they  viewed  as  a  disproof 
of  the  doctrine.  The  same  mistake  has  made  the  mass  of 
their  arguments  totally  irrelevant  from  the  time  of  Locke 
to  the  present. 

To  begin  with,  the  empiricist  has  commonly  mistaken  nat- 
ural for  omnipresent ;  and  holds  that  nothing  can  be  viewed 
as  founded  in  the  nature  of  mind  which  is  not  omnipresent 
in  mind.  Accordingly  Mr.  Mill  insists  that,  in  order  to  tell 
what  belongs  to  mind  as  mind,  we  must  look  in  upon  the 
mind  of  the  infant  as  it  lies  in  the  nurse's  arms;  and  now 
that  the  notion  of  heredity  has  become  fashionable,  some 
will  have  it  that  we  must  go  back  to  the  first  stirrings  of  the 
primitive  polyp  in  order  to  reach  mind  pure  and  simple. 


496  METAPHYSICS. 

The  tacit  assumption  is  that  all  which  cannot  be  found  in 
the  mind  prior  to  experience  must  be  viewed  as  an  adventi- 
tious product  of  experience.  If  the  child  knows  nothing  of 
right  and  wrong,  truth  and  error,  laws  of  thought,  etc., 
these  things  must  be  viewed  as  adventitious  to  the  mind,  or 
as  imposed  upon  the  mind  by  a  contingent  experience. 

The  implications  of  this  view  are  very  curious.  It  im- 
plies, first  of  all,  that  all  the  latencies  of  the  mind  are  re- 
vealed in  the  infant  consciousness.  This  conception,  again, 
is  based  on  the  notion  that  mind  is  simply  the  sum  of  men- 
tal states,  and  not  their  active  subject.  Hence,  the  proposi- 
tion to  look  in  upon  the  infant's  mind  as  it  lies  in  the 
nurse's  arms.  If  we  find  no  ideas,  we  may  conclude  that 
the  mind  owes  all  its  ideas  to  experience.  But,  upon  any 
other  theory  of  mind,  this  notion  is  simply  ludicrous.  To 
one  who  holds  that  the  mind  is  a  true  agent,  nothing  could 
seem  more  improbable  than  the  fancy  that  the  infant  con- 
sciousness reveals  all  the  possibilities  of  essential  mind. 
Indeed,  there  is  no  reason  for  believing  that  our  mature 
consciousness  reveals  all  the  latencies  of  our  nature.  It  is 
conceivable  that,  in  new  conditions,  the  soul  should  not  only 
experience  entirely  new  orders  of  sensation,  but  should  also 
arrange  its  objects  in  entirely  new  forms  of  intuition.  Except 
to  one  who  holds  that  mind  is  only  the  sura  of  mental  states, 
the  proposition  to  make  babies  the  popes  of  philosophy  is 
one  of  the  strangest  whims  in  the  history  of  thought.  The 
proposition  to  inspect  the  infant's  consciousness,  in  order  to 
find  what  belongs  essentially  to  mind,  is  like  a  proposition 
to  inspect  its  body  to  find  what  is  natural  to  the  body.  And 
the  conclusion,  from  the  emptiness  of  the  child's  conscious- 
ness to  the  adventitious  nature  of  the  mental  principles 
which  afterward  appear,  is  like  a  conclusion  that  various 
features  and  functions  of  the  mature  body  are  products  of 
experience,  because  the  child's  body  shows  no  sign  of  them. 
In  fact,  this  notion  of  determining  what  is  native  to  the 
mind  by  inspecting  consciousness  before  experience  begins 


APKIORISM  AND   EMPIRICISM.  497 

rests  upon  a  complete  misunderstanding  of  intuitionism. 
This  does  not  teach  that  mental  principles  exist  in  the  mind 
as  formulas  of  which  we  are  always  conscious,  but  only  as 
principles  ;  just  as  the  nature  of  the  oak  exists  in  the  acorn 
and  conditions  its  development.  Whoever  is  able  to  grasp 
this  simple  principle  will  thereafter  have  done  with  appeals 
to  the  infant's  consciousness. 

Again,  the  empiricist's  conception  of  natural  as  omnipres- 
ent involves  a  strange  oversight  of  all  the  analogies  of  nat- 
ure. It  would  imply  that  blossoms  and  fruit  cannot  be 
natural  because  for  years  the  growing  twig  gives  no  sign  of 
them.  Doubtless  the  intuitionists  have  been  guilty  of  ex- 
travagance ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  general  doctrine  of 
a  conditioning  mental  nature  to  forbid  the  notion  of  devel- 
opment. The  intuitionist  may  hold  that  the  mind  reveals 
its  latencies  successively  just  as  the  body  does;  but  at  the 
same  time  he  may  hold  that,  when  revealed,  they  are  no 
more  products  of  experience  than  apples  are  products  of 
experience.  The  empiricist,  on  the  other  hand,  confounds 
development  with  adventitious  acquirement;  and  whatever 
is  developed  in  the  mind  he  views  as  a  product  of  experi- 
ence only.  Here,  again,  he  betrays  his  misunderstanding  of 
the  intuitional  theory.  The  difference  between  the  idea  of 
development  and  that  of  adventitious  acquirement  is  as 
great  as  that  between  natural  hair  and  a  wig,  or  between 
one's  own  beard  and  false  whiskers.  Yet  the  empiricist 
thinks  it  relevant  to  point  out  that  ideas  are  developed. 
But  so  long  as  the  mind  is  regarded  as  a  real  thing,  so  long 
the  mental  nature  will  be  a  conditioning  factor  of  knowl- 
edge, and  all  that  experience  can  do  will  be  to  bring  out  the 
latencies  of  this  nature.  This  fact,  that  internal  develop- 
ment is  to  be  distinguished  from  external  accretion,  makes 
it  impossible  to  decide  between  apriorism  and  empiricism 
by  any  natural  history  of  intellect ;  for  such  history  would 
only  describe  the  order  of  growth  and  manifestation  with- 
out deciding  anything  as  to  its  source. 
32 


498  METAPHYSICS. 

Again,  there  is  nothing  in  intuitiouisin  rightly  understood 
which  teaches  that  the  mental  development  is  unconditioned 
and  irresistible.  If  there  were,  then  the  search  for  failing 
cases  would  have  some  relevancy ;  but  no  one  holds  such  a 
view.  It  is  natural  that  an  apple-tree  should  bear  apples ; 
but  this  nature  is  not  absolute.  It  may  be  so  thwarted  in 
its  development  that  the  outcome  shall  be  mean  and  worth- 
less, or  even  so  that  it  shall  never  come  to  flowers  and  fruit 
at  all.  Our  mental  nature  is  conditioned  in  the  same  way. 
Under  untoward  circumstances  it  may  be  thwarted  and  crip- 
pled, and  may  hardly  attain  to  the  lowest  form  of  a  rational 
life.  Locke  suggests,  as  a  disproof  of  intuitionism,  that  per- 
sons might  be  so  brought  up  that  they  should  never  attain 
to  any  rational  ideas.  The  misunderstanding  here  is  patent. 
The  fact  on  which  he  insists  does  not  prove  that  experience 
is  the  sole  source  of  knowledge,  but  only  that  the  human 
mind  is  conditioned,  and  that,  like  all  other  conditioned 
things,  it  depends  for  its  proper  manifestation  upon  the  ful- 
filment of  the  conditions.  The  intnitionist,  then,  holds  that 
there  is  a  mental  nature  which  conditions  all  our  knowledge. 
This  nature  is  subject  to  development,  and  is  conditioned  in 
its  unfolding ;  but  when  it  does  unfold,  the  resulting  princi- 
ples are  founded  not  in  experience,  but  in  the  mind  itself. 
The  intuitionist  is  not  even  under  obligation  to  hold  that 
the  self-evident  is  always  self-evident ;  on  the  contrary,  he 
may  hold  that  a  considerable  mental  development  is  neces- 
sary before  the  mind  can  discern  the  self-evident ;  indeed, 
he  may  even  hold  that,  owing  to  the  blinding  influence  of 
experience,  no  knowledge  is  so  hard  to  reach  as  that  which 
to  enlightened  thought  is  self-evident. 

The  extreme  vagueness  of  conception  which,  historically, 
has  marked  the  debate  between  apriorism  and  empiricism 
must  excuse  the  somewhat  wandering  character  of  the  dis- 
cussion up  to  this  point.  It  is  now  time  to  leave  these  gen- 
eral remarks  and  come  to  close  quarters  with  the  question. 


APRIORISM  AXD  EMPIRICISM.  499 

And  we  cannot  do  better  than  restate  the  problem  as  given 
in  an  earlier  paragraph.  "We  there  pointed  out  that  the 
question  is  double ;  concerning,  first,  the  origin  and  genesis 
of  faculty  and  belief,  and,  second,  the  warrant  for  believing. 
The  first  is  the  psychological  question,  the  second  is  the 
philosophical.  On  the  first  point,  the  intuitionist  holds  that 
there  are  original  principles  in  the  mind  whereby  alone  ex- 
perience is  possible,  and  that  these  may  be  learned  by  a  study 
of  the  mind's  action.  The  empiricist  holds  that  faculty  and 
belief  alike  are  generated  by  association  working  upon  sense- 
experience.  On  the  second  point,  the  intuitionist  holds  that 
the  mind  is  able  to  know  some  things  on  its  own  account, 
and  that  the  warrant  for  such  knowledge  is  simply  rational 
insight.  The  empiricist  holds  that  our  particular  experiences 
are  the  only  warrant  for  believing  anything.  These  two 
questions,  the  psychological  and  the  philosophical,  we  keep 
distinct,  and  discuss  in  their  order. 

In  beginning  the  psychological  discussion,  we  must  first 
ask  for  the  empiricist's  starting-point,  or  for  what  he  con- 
ceives as  the  data  of  his  problem.  Empiricism  often  allies 
itself  to  scepticism,  and  contends  that  we  do  not  know  any- 
thing. But  this  is  to  change  the  question  and  bring  thought 
to  a  standstill.  Besides,  such  a  course  is  suicidal ;  for  by  its 
denial  of  all  knowledge  it  removes  all  ground  from  empiri- 
cism, and  leaves  self-conceit  or  obstinacy  as  the  only  stand- 
ard of  belief.  In  order,  then,  not  to  reduce  the  debate  to  a 
farce,  we  must  assume  that  some  knowledge  is  possible,  and 
that  the  laws  of  thought  are  valid.  If  at  any  time  empiri- 
cism should  be  found  inconsistent  with  any  proper  knowl- 
edge, then  the  theory  would  have  to  be  rejected  as  self-de- 
structive. Further,  the  debate  must  be  carried  on  on  the 
assumption  of  the  reality  of  the  soul,  as  we  have  seen  that 
materialism  and  empiricism  are  incompatible.  This  fact 
further  makes  appeals  to  heredity  irrelevant ;  for  unless  we 
adopt  a  thorough-going  realism,  each  soul  is  ontologically 
distinct  from  every  other;  and  unless  we  adopt  a  theory  of 


500  METAPHYSICS. 

metempsychosis.  \ve  are  now  existing  for  the  first  time.  In 
that  case,  it  is  as  absurd  to  speak  of  one  mind  as  inheriting 
its  laws  from  another,  as  it  would  to  speak  of  one  physical 
element  inheriting  the  laws  of  its  action.  Each  mind  can 
only  be  viewed  as  a  new  factor  in  the  system ;  and  whatever 
new  tendencies  or  powers  the  new  mind  may  exhibit,  they 
are  not  to  be  viewed  as  deposits  of  experience  in  it,  for  the 
particular  being  has  had  no  experience.  In  short,  the  laws 
of  heredity  must  be  viewed  simply  as  descriptions  of  a  fact, 
and  never  as  its  explanation.  If  God  has  chosen  a  law  of 
development  as  the  norm  of  his  cosmic  activity,  there  will 
be  of  course  an  ascending  series  of  mental  subjects;  not, 
however,  as  if  the  physical  produced  the  mental,  or  as  if  an- 
cestors passed  on  something  to  posterity,  but  solely  because 
of  the  inner  consistency  of  the  divine  action.  When  the 
doctrine  of  heredity  is  held,  as  it  often  is,  in  connection  with 
materialistic  views,  it  is  doubly  worthless  for  the  empiricist. 
Besides,  the  doctrine  has  its  peculiar  dangers  for  empiricism, 
in  that  it  yields  to  apriorism  the  field  of  individual  experi- 
ence, and  claims  only  to  deduce  faculty  and  intuitive  beliefs 
from  a  race-experience.  But  this  is  to  surrender  empiricism 
in  the  only  field  in  which  it  can  be  tested.  It  admits  the 
apriori  faculty  and  intuition  in  the  only  minds  of  which  we 
know  anything,  and  puts  the  constructive  process  in  distant 
and  hypothetical  minds.  Hence,  although  the  majority  of 
empiricists  have  viewed  the  exchange  of  the  individual  ex- 
perience for  a  race-experience  as  a  master-stroke,  the  more 
rigorous  and  logical  among  them  have  not  failed  to  see  in  it 
an  implicit  abandonment  and  surrender  of  their  principles. 
Another  point  remains  obscure,  and  must  be  cleared  up  in 
advance.  There  is  no  agreement  among  empiricists  as  to 
the  place  of  the  outer  world  in  their  theory.  Most  empiri- 
cists have  taken  the  world  for  granted,  and  in  about  the 
same  form  as  it  has  for  common -sense.  They  assume  the 
world  to  exist  as  an  objective  reality  and  as  the  ground  of 
mental  movement.  In  particular,  the  human  body  is  so  real 


APEIOEISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  5Q1 

that  they  regard  physiology  as  the  foundation  of  psychol- 
ogy. The  laws  of  nerve -currents  and  their  combinations 
contain  all  the  secrets  of  the  mental  life.  There  is,  then,  a 
world  of  substantial  things  causally  connected  in  space  and 
time ;  and  the  only  problem  they  recognize  is  how  to  gener- 
ate in  the  mind  a  picture  of  this  order  both  in  its  coexist- 
ences and  in  its  sequences.  And  this  problem  they  find  ex- 
tremely easy  of  solution.  «As  there  are  fixed  orders  of  co- 
existence, sensations  are  given  in  groups,  and  by  association 
are  united  into  fixed  clusters.  In  this  way  our  notion  of 
thing  or  substance  is  formed,  and  our  knowledge  of  things 
is  gained.  There  are  also  fixed  orders  of  sequence  in  the 
outer  world,  and,  as  a  consequence,  there  is  a  tendency  to  a 
fixed  order  of  sequence  among  sensations.  In  this  way 
arises  the  notion  of  laws  of  nature  and  laws  of  thought. 
Again,  because  there  is  a  fixed  order  of  coexistence  and  se- 
quence in  the  world  of  things,  connected  coexistences  and 
sequences  will  be  more  frequent  in  experience  than  uncon- 
nected ones.  The  latter  must  be  irregular  and  infrequent 
compared  with  the  former.  Hence,  experience  itself  will 
tend  to  separate  those  coexistences  and  sequences  which  be- 
long together  in  the  nature  of  things  from  irregular  and 
accidental  ones ;  and  thus  by  the  simple  repetition  of  expe- 
riences we  learn  to  separate  those  coexistences  and  sequences 
which  belong  together  in  the  nature  of  things  from  those 
which  merely  happen  together  in  our  experience.  In  this 
way  all  that  is  in  the  mind  can  be  explained  without  assum- 
ing any  original  mental  insight.  The  mind  is  purely  pas- 
sive, but  reality  photographs  itself  accurately  upon  it. 

There  is  a  certain  innocence  in  this  view  which  cannot 
fail  to  disarm  hostile  criticism.  If  there  were  some  way  of 
assuring  the  existence  of  this  world  of  substantial  things  in 
causal,  spatial,  and  temporal  relations,  the  view  would  not  be 
without  plausibility.  But  Hume  showed  that  such  a  world 
can  never  be  reached  by  experience.  Cause,  substance,  space, 
and  the  other  categories  of  thought,  do  not  report  themselves 


502  METAPHYSICS. 

in  experience,  but  are  the  data  of  experience.  If,  then,  ex- 
perience be  the  sole  source  of  knowledge,  there  is  nothing 
to  do  but  to  declare  these  ideas  to  be  unaccountable  delu- 
sions without  the  slightest  claim  to  reality.  This  fact  is  a 
great  embarrassment  to  the  empiricist.  If  he  accepts  a  real 
world,  he  has  to  admit  that  there  are  elements  in  such  an  ad- 
mission for  which  his  philosophy  does  not  account.  If  he 
denies  a  real  world,  then  the  apparent  foundation  of  the 
doctrine  in  common-sense  disappears;  and  that  fixed  order  of 
coexistences  and  sequences,  upon  which  so  much  reliance  is 
placed,  vanishes  altogether.  The  extreme  discomfort  of  be- 
ing impaled  on  either  horn  of  this  dilemma  has  led  some 
empiricists  to  seek  to  slip  between  them.  Accordingly, 
Mill  has  proposed  to  explain  the  outer  world  as  only  a  pro- 
jection of  subjective  elements.  In  this  view,  feelings  are 
the  basal  fact,  and  nothing  is  said  of  their  origin.  We  need 
not  go  behind  them ;  and  with  them  we  can  easily  explain 
our  world-vision  and  our  beliefs  concerning  it.  But  in  spite 
of  this  assurance  we  must  go  behind  them  and  ask  one  or 
two  questions.  Are  these  feelings  objectively  determined 
or  not  ?  If  not,  then  we  are  pure  egoists,  and  no  one  has 
the  least  ground  for  doubting  that  he  is  the  universe.  If  it 
be  replied  that  these  feelings  are  not  determined  at  all,  nei- 
ther from  within  nor  from  without,  but  simply  are,  we  get 
into  worse  trouble  than  ever.  For  in  that  case  antecedent 
feelings  would  have  no  effect  upon  consequent  feelings,  and 
only  a  factual  'sequence  of  mental  states  would  remain. 
There  would  be  no  determination  of  belief  or  knowledge 
by  experience,  and  any  belief  or  knowledge  whicli  we  might 
possess  would  be  an  opaque  but  independent  fact.  Each 
fact  would  be  its  own  and  only  warrant.  If  we  trusted 
knowledge  at  all,  it  could  not  be  on  the  ground  of  experi- 
ence, but  only  on  the  warrant  of  the  knowledge  itself.  In 
that  case  the  empiricist's  deductions,  explanations,  and  vari- 
ous theories  of  mental  genesis  would  vanish  utterly ;  and 
thus,  by  sheer  excess  of  empiricism,  we  should  transcend  the 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  5Q3 

doctrine  and  come  back  to.  a  curious  kind  of  apriorism.  We 
cannot  even  be  empiricists  without  admitting  the  idea  of 
causation,  that  is,  the  determination  of  one  thing  by  another, 
or  of  one  state  of  a  thing  by  an  antecedent  state.  But  this 
idea  cannot  be  found  in  any  sensitive  experience.  It  re- 
mains a  mental  datum,  and  if  not  accepted  as  such  must  be 
rejected  altogether.  But  on  none  of  these  points  was  Mill 
clear.  He  was  not  willing  to  take  the  world  for  granted 
in  quite  so  innocent  a  fashion  as  most  empiricists ;  but  if 
we  should  strike  out  all  assumptions  of  objective  existence, 
some  of  his  best  arguments  would  collapse.  No  more  was 
he  willing  to  allow  the  law  of  causation,  but  his  entire  sys- 
tem rests  upon  it.  In  fact  his  system  is  a  most  discreditable 
seesaw  of  views  in  which  egoism,  nihilism,  Berkeleianism, 
empiricism,  scepticism,  and  vulgar  realism  all  play  a  part 
according  to  the  exigencies  of  the  argument.  The  most 
valuable  result  that  emerges  is  the  conclusion  that,  for  aught 
we  know,  two  and  two  may  make  five  in  some  other  planet. 
We  said  that,  before  beginning  the  discussion  of  the  psy- 
chological question,  we  must  inquire  for  the  starting-point 
and  postulates  of  empiricism.  We  find,  however,  that  there 
is  no  agreement  among  empiricists  as  to  where  their  theory 
starts  and  what  it  assumes.  For  the  sake  of  progress,  there- 
fore, we  make  the  empiricist  a  present  of  the  outer  world  in 
any  form  he  may  desire,  and  wait  to  see  what  he  will  do 
with  it.  But  as  the  soul  is  real,  and  as  perception  comes 
under  the  head  of  interaction,  it  is  impossible  to  lay  the 
ground  of  knowledge  entirely  in  the  object.  The  nature 
of  the  soul  must  also  play  a  part  in  determining  the  product. 
This  necessary  admission  is  restricted  by  the  empiricist  to 
simple  sensibility.  Susceptibility  to  sensation  and  feeling 
is  all  that  is  original  to  the  mind.  The  apriori  elements  of 
knowledge  are  to  be  found  in  sensation  and  feeling,  and  not 
in  any  laws  or  forms  of  thought.  These  affections,  as  quite 
unlike  anything  which  can  exist  in  the  object  or  apart  from 
the  subject,  may  be  regarded  as  due  to  the  peculiar  nature 


504  METAPHYSICS. 

of  the  mind ;  but  all  else  is  product.  In  itself  the  mind  has 
no  tendency  to  arrange  its  sensations  in  one  form  rather 
than  in  another ;  and  the  form  which  they  actually  assume 
depends  entirely  upon  the  object.  As  the  greatest  variety 
of  tunes  may  be  played  upon  a  piano  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
player,  so  the  greatest  variety  of  utterances  might  be  educed 
from  the  mind  by  a  properly  arranged  reality.  Instead, 
then,  of  regarding  the  actual  laws  and  forms  of  thought  as 
essential  to  mind,  we  must  rather  view  them  as  a  particular 
tune  played  by  a  particular  experience.  Any  other  tune, 
however,  is  equally  possible,  and,  if  real,  would  seern  just  as 
self-evident  as  the  present  one.  Thinking  is  not  an  act  of 
the  mind,  but  rather  a  process  in  the  mind.  The  basal  fact 
is  sensations  and  feelings  shifting  and  combining  according 
to  the  laws  of  association ;  and  when  this  process  has  become 
complex,  and  certain  lines  of  uniformity  have  been  marked 
out,  we  call  it  judging  and  reasoning.  In  this  view",  the  aim 
is  not  to  dispute  the  validity  of  knowledge,  nor  to  inquire 
for  its  warrant,  but  solely  to  explain  the  genesis  of  faculty 
and  belief. 

For  the  success  of  psychological  empiricism,  no  conditions 
could  be  more  favorable  than  those  assumed  in  the  preced- 
ing paragraph.  Certain  obscure  questions  might  be  raised, 
as,  for  example,  whether  the  empirical  theory  does  not  imply 
an  imperfect  appreciation  of  law  and  uniformity  in  its  as- 
sumption, that  ideas  may  be  joined  in  any  and  every  way. 
"We  might  also  ask  whether  we  have  not  covered  up  a  great 
many  differences  with  the  terms  sensation  and  feeling.  The 
fact  is  always  sensations  and  feelings,  and  not  sensation  and 
feeling.  These  abstract  terms  are  simple  and  undifferenti- 
ated,  but  the  feelings  and  sensations  themselves  must  show 
every  variety  of  difference  in  order  to  account  for  the  variety 
of  mental  objects.  Why  should  a  given  sensation  result  in 
the  thought  of  a  cat,  and  another  in  the  thought  of  a  dog, 
unless  there  be  an  original  cattiness  in  one,  and  an  original 
dogginess  in  the  other  ?  Certainly,  we  do  not  escape  com- 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  5Q5 

plexity  by  lamping  mental  states  under  a  single  term,  we 
only  cover  it  up.  But  we  pass  over  these  scruples,  and  op- 
pose to  the  theory  of  the  last  paragraph  the  claim  that  there 
are  elements  in  the  mental  life  which  no  amount  or  modifi- 
cation of  sensibility  can  ever  produce.  These  are  the  ra- 
tional elements  of  knowledge.  If,  then,  we  view  sensation 
as  a  first  order  of  mental  reaction,  a  reaction  against  external 
action,  we  must  view  the  rational  forms  of  activity  as  a  sec- 
ond and  higher  order  of  mental  reaction,  a  reaction  against 
the  sensitive  states  themselves. 

This  claim  can  be  judged  only  by  assuming  a  purely  sen- 
tient mind,  and  endowing  it  with  sensations.  If  from  com- 
bination of  these  elements  we  see  the  higher  forms  of  judg- 
ment and  reasoning  resulting  as  a  necessary  consequence, 
the  empirical  view  is  sustained ;  but  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  find  in  the  sensations  themselves  no  reason  for  advance, 
the  apriori  view  is  sustained.  This  experiment  we  made  in 
discussing  the  process  of  perception,  and  we  need  only  re- 
call the  results.  We  suppose  the  mind  to  have  n  sensations. 
By  hypothesis  the  mind  is  purely  sentient,  and  hence  with- 
out any  tendency  to  work  its  sensations  over  into  the  higher 
forms  of  rationality.  The  sensations,  then,  must  lie  in  the 
mind  inert  and  motionless,  unless  some  principle  of  move- 
ment be  introduced.  This  principle  the  empiricist  finds  in 
association,  whereby  the  sensations  are  variously  united  into 
clusters  and  series.  We  need  not  stop  to  criticise  the  laws 
of  association,  although  they  are  far  from  consistent  or  trans- 
parent ;  we  content  ourselves  with  pointing  out  that  they  do 
not  help  us  to  transcend  sensation.  Whereas,  before  we  had 
n  scattered  and  individual  sensations,  now  we  have  n  sensa- 
tions variously  grouped,  but  n  sensations  still.  Having  put 
nothing  but  sensations  in,  we  can  get  nothing  but  sensations 
out.  We  may  think  to  help  ourselves  by  conceiving  the 
process  to  extend  over  long  periods,  so  that  the  complexity 
of  the  grouping  shall  become  very  great ;  but  still  the  fact 
is  simply  n  sensations.  The  ideas  of  substance,  cause,  iden- 


506  METAPHYSICS. 

tity,  continuity,  space,  likeness,  and  unlikeness  have  not  yet 
appeared.  And  here  we  have  to  make  a  choice :  either  we 
must  admit  that  associating  sensations  cannot  generate  these 
ideas,  or  we  must  declare  these  ideas  to  be  nothing  but  asso- 
ciated sensations.  In  the  former  case  we  abandon  empiri- 
cism, and  in  the  latter  we  come  into  collision  with  fact.  By 
substance  we  do  not  mean  a  cluster  of  sensations,  but  the  ob- 
jective ground  and  subject  of  qualities.  By  causation  we 
do  not  mean  the  antecedence  of  one  part  of  our  experience 
to  another  part,  but  we  mean  the  determination  of  one  real 
thing  by  another.  These  ideas  we  actually  have,  and  the 
empiricist  attempts  to  explain  them ;  but  the  explanation 
consists  in  changing  the  problem,  and  calling  something 
else  by  the  same  name.  In  either  case,  we  abandon  empiri- 
cism. In  the  first  case,  we  confess  that  associating  sensa- 
tions will  not  explain  the  ideas  in  question ;  in  the  second 
case,  we  confess  that  sensation  will  not  explain  them,  un- 
less we  are  allowed  to  mean  something  else.  Finally,  if  we 
should  allow  the  latter  explanation,  we  should  be  plunged 
at  once  into  nihilistic  egoism.  Substance  as  only  a  cluster 
of  our  sensations,  and  causation  as  only  antecedence  and  se- 
quence in  our  experience,  can  have  no  objective  significance. 
Not  until  we  pronounce  the  words  cause  and  substance  in 
their  proper  meaning  can  we  transcend  our  own  subjectiv- 
ity; and,  in  this  sense,  these  ideas  are  not  given  in  experi- 
ence, but  are  brought  by  the  mind  to  the  explanation  and 
rationalization  of  experience.  And  even  where  there  is  no 
question  of  metaphysical  substance,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
judgment,  we  still  see  the  mind  giving  its  objects  the  form 
of  substance  and  quality.  The  noun  appears  as  the  inde- 
pendent base  of  the  sentence,  and  the  predicate  is  joined  to 
it  under  the  form  either  of  inherence,  as  in  the  adjective,  or 
of  causation,  as  in  the  active  verb.  Until  this  distinction  is 
made,  thought  has  not  begun ;  but  this  distinction  is  not 
contained  in  sensation.  The  same  is  true  of  the  notion  of 
identity.  Until  the  notion  of  an  identical  subject  is  thrown 


APKIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  5Q7 

into  the  flow  of  sense-experience,  there  cau  be  no  judgment 
of  any  kind.  Even  the  simplest  statement  of  experience 
involves  this  apriori  element.  If  the  statement  be  that  we 
have  seen  something  change  its  place,  we  transcend  experi- 
ence. The  fact  is  that  we  saw  a  group  of  nearly  similar 
phenomena  appear  at  successive  points  of  space  in  succes- 
sive moments  of  time.  That  we  saw  a  thing  move,  or  that 
the  group  of  phenomena  is  the  same  at  the  end  of  the  mo- 
tion as  at  the  beginning,  is  by  no  means  given  in  the  expe- 
rience. There  is  nothing  whatever  in  the  sensations  them- 
selves which  calls  for  the  assumption  of  an  identical  subject ; 
and  if  there  were  a  mind  without  any  necessity  of  rational- 
izing its  experience,  it  might  have  a  constant  repetition  of 
similar  sensations,  without  the  least  suspicion  of  an  identical 
subject.  It  is  quite  indifferent  to  the  present  inquiry  wheth- 
er there  be  any  identical  subject  or  not ;  the  mind  does  uni- 
versally view  its  objects  under  this  form  of  identity  and 
continuity ;  and  this  form  is  a  mental  addition  to  the  sensi- 
ble experience. 

The  mind  deals  with  its  objects  under  the  forms  of  cause 
and  effect,  substance  and  quality,  identity,  continuity,  and 
space.  These  forms  we  regard  as  contributed  by  the  mind, 
and  for  the  reason  that  there  is  nothing  in  simple  sentiency 
which  shows  the  least  tendency  to  produce  them.  We  fur- 
ther pointed  out,  in  discussing  perception,  that  the  faculty 
of  judgment  must  be  regarded  as  an  advance  beyond  any 
possible  reach  of  sentiency.  To  have  like  or  unlike  expe- 
riences does  not  insure  a  knowledge  of  their  likeness  or  un- 
likeness.  We  also  saw  that  all  knowledge  of  relations,  of 
whatever  kind,  involves  a  peculiar  rational  activity  of  the 
mind.  Every  judgment  of  likeness  or  unlikeness,  and  every 
perception  of  relations,  whether  simple  or  complex,  are  more 
than  sensations ;  they  are  acts  upon  sensations.  It  is  over- 
sight of  this  fact  which  has  led  many  empiricists  to  attempt 
to  deduce  all  the  faculties  as  modifications  of  sensation.  By 
association  the  present  tends  to  recall  the  past,  and  this  is 


508  METAPHYSICS. 

memory.  By  association  like  tends  to  get  with  like,  and 
what  is  the  association  of  like  with  like  but  a  judgment  of 
their  disagreement.  By  association  also  unlike  ideas  are  dis- 
sociated, and  what  is  this  but  a  judgment  of  disagreement. 
But  judgments  also  associate  and  dissociate,  and  this  is  rea- 
soning. Thus  memory,  judgment,  and  reasoning  are  all 
seen  to  be  but  phases  of  the  one  process  of  associating  sen- 
sitive states.  To  all  this  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  the  re- 
currence of  a  past  state  is  not  memory,  and  that  the  pres- 
ence of  like  or  unlike  states  of  feeling  is  not  a  judgment  of 
likeness  or  unlikeness.  The  most  complex  order  of  likeness 
and  unlikeness  can  exist  without  the  least  recognition  of 
them  as  such.  Empiricism  of  this  type  roused  Mill's  deep- 
est wrath.  In  his  essay  on  Coleridge  he  speaks  of  Condil- 
lac's  theory  as  "  a  system  which  affected  to  resolve  all  the 
phenomena  of  the  human  mind  into  sensation  by  a  process 
which  eventually  consisted  in  merely  calling  all  states  of 
mind,  however  heterogeneous,  by  that  name ;  a  philosophy 
now  acknowledged  to  consist  solely  of  a  set  of  verbal  gener- 
alizations, explaining  nothing,  distinguishing  nothing,  lead- 
ing to  nothing."  Mill  would  have  had  a  great  deal  of  diffi- 
culty, not  in  justifying  this  judgment,  for  it  is  strictly  cor- 
rect, but  in  reconciling  it  to  his  own  philosophy ;  for  Hume 
did  certainly  show  that  a  consistent  empiricism  must  become 
sensationalism ;  and  Kant  showed  that  experience,  in  Locke's 
sense,  involves  a  multitude  of  apriori  elements.  But,  how- 
ever this  may  be,  judging  and  reasoning  are  not  simply  oc- 
currences in  the  mind  in  which  the  cohesive  attraction  of 
association  is  the  only  ground  of  movement,  but  they  are 
pre-eminently  active  processes,  of  which  the  mind  is  the 
active  subject.  In  sensation  the  mind  feels  that  it  is  recep- 
tive rather  than  active.  In  association  the  mental  mecha- 
nism plays  a  prominent  part,  but  in  reasoning  the  mind  is 
fully  conscious  of  itself  as  self-determinant.  Mental  action 
is  so  far  from  being  exhausted  in  the  processes  of  associa- 
tion, that  the  mind,  in  reasoning,  turns  upon  association,  re- 


APKIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  509 

sists  and  controls  its  processes,  and  undoes  many  of  its  con- 
junctions. Not  until  the  transparent  order  of  reason  is 
reached,  not  until  the  premises  are  seen  to  compel  the  con- 
clusion, will  the  reasoning  mind  give  its  assent.  But  this  is 
something  entirely  different  from  sentiency.  It  is  self-de- 
termined activity.  But  if  we  are  resolved  to  stop  at  noth- 
ing, and  insist  on  viewing  the  judgment  as  only  a  mechan- 
ical association  and  dissociation  of  ideas,  then  all  rationality 
perishes.  Judgments  become  simple  facts  in  us,  and  one  is 
as  good  as  another  while  it  lasts.  Such  association  or  disso- 
ciation would  not  contain  the  least  ground  for  an  objective 
or  universal  affirmation. 

A  final  difficulty  in  the  empirical  psychology  is  the  fact 
that  the  most  frequent  conjunctions  of  experience  do  not 
produce  the  most  assured  beliefs ;  whereas,  the  theory  would 
imply  that  those  beliefs  would  be  most  enduring  whose  ele- 
ments are  most  frequently  experienced  in  conjunction.  We 
have  many  beliefs  which  coerce  acceptance ;  for  example, 
the  universality  of  causation  and  of  mathematical  truth. 
Beliefs  of  this  sort  the  apriorist  calls  intuitions,  and  founds 
them  upon  a  direct  insight  by  the  mind  into  their  self-evi- 
dent truth.  The  empiricist  prefers  to  describe  them  nega- 
tively, as  beliefs  whose  elements  cannot  be  separated  in 
thought ;  and  when  the  ground  of  this  impossibility  is  asked 
for,  he  replies  that  absolute  uniformities  of  experience  gen- 
erate absolute  uniformities  of  thought.  The  elements  of 
these  beliefs  having  always  been  conjoined  in  experience,  it 
is  impossible  to  think  them  apart.  Since  we  are  shut  up  to 
experience,  and  since  experience  has  always  given  us  certain 
elements  in  conjunction,  of  course  we  cannot  think  them 
asunder.  Mr.  Mill  suggests  that,  if  a  single  failing  case 
had  occurred  in  our  experience,  possibly  we  might  conceive 
the  untruth  of  our  most  assured  beliefs  without  much  effort. 
To  this  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  we  have  absolute  sequences 
which  are  easily  thought  asunder,  while  we  have  rational 
principles  which  are  incessantly  violated  in  appearance,  yet 


510  METAPHYSICS. 

without  in  any  way  weakening  our  conviction  of  their  truth. 
Since  the  race  began,  the  sequence  of  day  and  night  has 
been  absolute  in  experience,  but  there  is  not  the  least  diffi- 
culty in  conceiving  one  apart  from  the  other.  Again,  the 
general  course  of  nature  has  been  uniform  in  the  experience 
both  of  the  race  and  of  the  individual,  but  it  has  wrought 
no  conviction  that  this  uniformity  is  necessary.  The  uni- 
formity of  nature  ought  to  be  the  supreme  intuition,  if  uni- 
form experience  generates  necessary  beliefs.  The  law  of 
causation,  on  the  other  hand,  is  subject,  in  appearance,  to  in- 
cessant violation.  Everywhere  the  scientist  is  guided  by 
the  belief  in  causation,  but,  in  the  great  mass  of  phenom- 
ena, he  is  quite  unable  to  detect  it.  What  are  the  causes  of 
good  and  bad  weather,  of  the  shape  of  the  clouds,  of  the 
direction  of  the  winds,  of  most  forms  of  disease,  of  all  the 
low  forms  of  life?  Indeed,  so  far  as  proper  knowledge  is 
concerned,  the  greater  part  of  nature  sets  the  law  of  causa- 
tion at  defiance.  Of  course,  it  is  impossible  ever  to  observe 
causation  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  but,  allowing  the 
possibility,  it  is  plain  that,  in  the  great  majority  of  events, 
no  causal  connection  can  be  traced  at  all.  It  is  not  experi- 
ence, then,  which  makes  the  law  of  causation  a  universal 
truth,  and  the  uniformity  of  nature  only  a  contingent  as- 
sumption. The  same  is  true  for  mathematical  principles. 
We  find  them,  also,  incessantly  violated  in  appearance. 
We  have  but  to  look  down  a  street,  or  down  a  line  of  rail- 
road, to  see  parallel  lines  meeting.  Perspective  distorts 
and  falsifies  all  geometrical  principles  and  relations.  In 
short,  our  senses  are  at  constant  war  with  rational  princi- 
ples. And  yet  we  are  told  that  possibly  a  few  failing  cases 
might  help  us  to  conceive  the  falsehood  of  all  rational  prin- 
ciples, when  failing  cases  are  the  rule  rather  than  the  ex- 
ception. But  the  reason  sits  regnant  over  these  confusions 
of  the  senses,  testing  and  rectifying  them  by  its  own  self- 
centred  principles.  It  is  a  matter  for  profound  wonder,  in 
view  of  this  most  patent  feature  of  sense-experience,  that  any 


APRIOKISM  AXD  EMPIRICISM.  5H 

one  should  ever  have  dreamed  of  making  it  the  sole  source  of 
rational  truth.  As  empiricists,  we  can  escape  this  difficulty 
only  by  assuming  a  mental  tendency  to  associate  objects  in 
one  way  rather  than  in  another,  or  a  stronger  primal  associ- 
ability  between  some  ideas  than  between  some  others.  But 
this  is  only  a  roundabout  way  of  abandoning  empiricism. 
A  mental  tendency  would  be  indistinguishable  from  a  men- 
tal principle,  except  in  name,  and  the  different  degree  of 
associability  would  only  be  another  way  of  saying  that,  in 
the  nature  of  thought,  some  ideas  belong  together  and  oth- 
ers do  not.  A  degree  of  associability  so  high  that  the  ideas 
have  to  be  put  together  only  once  in  order  to  cohere  for- 
ever is  a  suspicious  conception  for  empiricism.  It  assumes 
apriorism  in  the  ideas,  if  not  in  the  mind. 

Thus  far  we  have  dealt  only  with  the  psychological  ques- 
tion. The  empiricist  proposed  to  explain  the  genesis  of 
faculty  and  belief  by  the  simple  association  of  sensitive 
states.  The  failure  is  evident.  Allowing  the  world  to  be 
real,  and  to  produce  sensations  in  any  desirable  order  in  the 
mind,  it  is  still  impossible  to  transcend  sensation  by  sensa- 
tion alone.  In  order  to  rise  above  the  sentient  plane,  the 
mind  must  react  against  its  sensitive  states  with  a  special 
rational  activity,  and  bring  into  them  the  ideas  of  substance 
and  quality,  cause  and  effect,  identity  and  continuity,  space 
and  time.  This  thinking,  judging,  differentiating  activity 
of  the  mind  is  evoked,  but  only  evoked,  by  sensation ;  and 
these  ideas  are  norms  of  this  activity  and  not  deposits  of 
sensation  in  us.  At  every  step  of  mental  movement,  the 
mind  appears  as  organic.  It  does  not  passively  receive  and 
simply  retain  what  is  put  into  it,  but  it  reacts  against  the 
external  contribution  as  an  organism  against  its  food,  modi- 
fying, assimilating,  and  working  it  over  into  the  forms  re- 
quired by  its  own  nature.  That  which  gives  the  empirical 
view  such  plausibility  with  the  uncritical  is  the  fact  that 
these  mental  principles  are  so  inwoven  with  all  mental 


512  METAPHYSICS. 

action  that  we  take  them  for  granted,  and  even  seem  to  find 
them  given  in  sensation  itself.  That  experience,  in  the  com- 
mon-sense of  the  term,  is  impossible  except  through  these 
principles  is  something  undreamed  of;  and  the  statement, 
when  made,  seems  like  a  needless  complication  of  a  very 
simple  matter.  We  pass  now  to  the  philosophic  question 
concerning  the  ground  and  warrant  of  belief.  For  the  pres- 
ent we  confine  ourselves  to  rational  truth  or  truths  of  reason. 
This  question  brings  us  into  an  entirely  new  field ;  but 
unfortunately  it  has  not  been  kept  distinct  in  thought  by 
either  the  empiricist  or  the  intuitionist.  Both  have  con- 
fined themselves  mainly,  the  former  almost  exclusively,  to 
the  causes  and  genesis  of  belief.  Accordingly  they  have  run 
a  race  for  the  polyp  and  even  for  the  primitive  star-dust, 
in  the  full  conviction  that  the  debate  between  them  de- 
pends on  what  may  be  found  at  that  distant  point  and  in 
those  raw  beginnings.  But  it  is  high  time  to  point  out 
that  this  performance  is  philosophically  irrelevant.  The  im- 
portant thing  in  philosophy  is  not  to  know  how  belief  is 
produced,  but  what  it  is  worth  when  produced.  If,  then,  it 
could  be  shown  that  all  beliefs  are  innate,  or  that  they  are 
all  generated  in  us  by  experience,  the  philosophical  question 
would  still  remain  open  and  unanswered.  The  innate  is 
not  necessarily  true;  for  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  error 
should  be  innate  as  well  as  truth.  The  question,  says  Mill, 
is  not  whether  consciousness  can  be  trusted,  but  what  con- 
sciousness can  be  trusted.  If  we  could  reach  the  pure 
utterances  of  consciousness,  these,  he  admits,  would  be  im- 
pregnable to  doubt.  He  speaks  of  them  as  "  original  ele- 
ments of  mind  "  and  "  original  beliefs."  But  the  fact  that 
an  utterance  is  pure,  or  primal,  or  original,  is  not  in  itself 
the  least  ground  for  accepting  the  utterance  as  valid.  It  is 
possible  enough  that  there  should  be  pure,  primal,  and  orig- 
inal errors  as  well  as  truths.  Hence,  to  prove  a  belief  in- 
nate is  not  necessarily  to  prove  it  true.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  the  genesis  of  every  belief  could  be  traced  so  that  we 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  513 

could  refer  the  total  content  of  consciousness  to  its  adequate 
causes  in  our  psychological  experience,  we  should  have  no 
standard  for  distinguishing  beliefs  as  true  and  false.  "We 
should  merely  have  the  beliefs  as  psychological  facts;  and 
their  truth  or  falsehood  would  still  have  to  be  determined. 
And  this  determination  can  be  made  not  merely  by  consid- 
ering the  origin  of  the  belief,  but  rather  by  reflection  upon 
the  content  of  the  belief  and  the  grounds  which  are  offered 
for  it.  In  general,  in  order  that  a  belief  be  philosophically 
acceptable,  it  must  be  self-evident,  or  it  must  be  proved,  or 
at  least  made  probable.  Either  in  itself  or  in  its  relation  to 
other  propositions  it  must  have  reasons  which  warrant  its 
acceptance. 

From  this  standpoint  the  claim  of  the  intuitionist  becomes 
that  there  are  certain  universal  truths,  that  these  are  known 
by  direct  insight,  or  by  their  own  self-evidence.  By  uni- 
versality he  means,  not  that  every  one  knows  the  truth,  but 
that  whenever  any  one  comprehends  the  subject,  he  will  see 
the  predicate  to  be  a  necessary  implication.  Thus  the 
shortest  distance  between  two  points  is  a  straight  line. 
There  may  be  persons  who  have  not  and  cannot  have  the 
ideas  contained  in  this  proposition.  Points,  distances,  and 
lines  may  have  no  existence  for  them ;  and  for  them  the 
proposition  would  be  neither  true  nor  false,  but  unintelligi- 
ble. But  when  these  ideas  are  possessed  and  are  brought 
together,  then  the  mind  sees  that  the  subject  implies  the 
predicate.  Such  propositions  the  intuitionist  calls  universal 
truths.  And  for  him  the  ground  for  accepting  them  lies 
entirely  in  our  insight  into  their  self-evidence.  This  in- 
sight he  regards  as  an  ultimate  fact  of  mind.  It  may  be 
variously  conditioned  by  experience,  and  by  the  mental 
mechanism ;  but  when  it  is  reached,  it  is  self-sufficing.  If 
the  mind  had  not  the  power  of  holding  its  objects  apart  in 
distinct  thought,  it  could  not  attain  to  insight  of  any  kind. 
This  power  is  the  psychological  condition  of  thinking,  and 
often  enough  it  is  lacking.  This  is  especially  the  case  with 
33 


514:  METAPHYSICS. 

the  uneducated,  and  all  experience  it  more  or  less.  In  deal- 
ing \vith  large  numbers,  or  with  complex  figures  or  argu- 
ments, we  have  a  vivid  sense  of  our  psychological  limitations. 
"We  cannot  hold  the  object  clearly  before  the  mind,  and  all 
insight  fails.  When  we  have  counted  a  large  number,  we 
are  never  sure,  unless  we  have  carefully  watched  each  step, 
that  our  counting  is  correct.  Our  insight,  then,  is  psycholog- 
ically conditioned ;  and  no  thinker  can  be  trusted  who  can- 
not hold  his  objects  apart  in  clear  thought.  To  assist  the 
mind,  we  resort  to  various  devices.  The  child  counts  his 
fingers,  or  blocks,  etc.  The  mathematician  draws  his  dia- 
grams and  writes  down  his  figures.  The  abstract  thinker 
repeats  his  processes  so  as  to  become  familiar  with  them 
and  grasp  them  more  clearly.  But  all  of  these  things 
are  only  means  for  getting  the  object  clearly  before  the 
mind.  They  assist  the  representative  power  rather  than 
the  reason.  They  are  the  psychological  conditions  of  rea- 
soning, and  not  reasoning  itself.  But  when  the  condi- 
tions are  fulfilled,  there  comes  a  moment  of  insight.  In 
order  to  see  that  parallel  lines  will  never  meet,  we  must 
be  able  to  form  the  conception  of  lines,  and  we  must 
bring  them  together  in  a  parallel  position,  and  contem- 
plate them  in  that  relation.  So  far  all  is  preparatory. 
Then  the  mind  sees  that  the  proposition  is  true.  It  asks 
for  no  further  evidence,  but  has  the  knowledge  in  itself. 
This  insight,  the  intuitionist  holds,  admits  of  no  deduction 
from  the  previous  psychological  state.  It  is  immediate  and 
original.  It  is  psychologically  conditioned  in  its  coming; 
only  a  long  training  may  enable  one  to  reach  it ;  but  it  is 
self-sufficing  when  it  comes.  This  insight,  again,  the  intui- 
tionist holds,  is  not  merely  an  impotence  or  an  inability  to 
separate  subject  and  predicate  in  consciousness.  Empiricists 
have  given  this  impotence  as  the  standard  of  truth,  and  they 
have  declared  those  propositions  to  be  true  whose  opposites 
cannot  be  conceived.  The  intuitionist  insists  in  return  that 
such  an  inability  in  itself  proves  nothing.  Unless  it  be 


APRIORISM  AXD  EMPIRICISM.  515 

but  the  opposite  side  of  a  positive  insight  into  the  truth, 
one  cannot  imagine  a  more  insufficient  test  of  truth  than 
this.  That  A  and  B  cohere  in  consciousness  is  only  a  psy- 
chological fact ;  that  they  cannot  be  torn  asunder  in  con- 
sciousness is  likewise  a  psychological  fact.  The  inference 
therefrom,  that  A  B  is  a  universal  truth,  is  one  in  which 
we  miss  all  logical  connection  between  premise  and  con- 
clusion. The  inconceivability  of  the  opposite  is  a  test  of 
truth  whose  value  is  purely  negative.  When  propositions 
put  on  a  delusive  show  of  self-evidence,  we  discover  the  fact 
by  setting  up  the  opposite  and  perceiving  that  it  is  possible 
in  thought.  The  test  has  no  further  value.  By  insight, 
then,  the  intuitionist  means  something  positive,  a  self-suffic- 
ing knowledge.  From  this  it  will  be  seen  how  abjectly  ir- 
relevant the  appeals  to  mental  development  must  seem  to 
the  intuitionist.  He  recognizes  that  certain  psychological 
auxiliaries  are  necessary  to  rationality,  and  that  these  are 
subject  both  to  development  and  to  paralysis.  But  just  as 
the  auxiliary  lines  by  which  we  demonstrate  a  theorem  do 
not  make  the  theorem  true,  but  only  furnish  a  standpoint 
from  which  we  can  see  its  truth,  so  our  psychological  de- 
velopment does  not  make  the  truth  we  recognize,  but  fur- 
nishes the  conditions  of  its  recognition. 

In  discussing  the  psychological  question,  it  appeared  that 
the  empiricist  has  no  clear  conception  of  his  own  system. 
The  same  fact  appears  in  discussing  the  philosophical  ques- 
tion. Two  questions  may  be  distinguished :  (1)  Is  there  any 
universal  truth  2  and,  (2),  How  do  we  know  such  truth,  sup- 
posing it  to  exist?  Concerning  the  first  question,  the  em- 
piricist is  not  clear  in  his  own  mind.  Sometimes  he  thinks 
AVC  possess  a  knowledge  of  principles  which  are  universally 
valid,  and  regards  the  second  question  as  the  only  one  at 
issue.  He  has  even  been  known  to  grow  indignant  at  the 
charge  that  his  theory  makes  knowledge  impossible.  This 
he  repudiates  as  an  attempt  to  cast  unjust  odium  on  his 
view.  And  yet  he  himself  plays  the  sceptic  at  times.  lie 


516  METAPHYSICS. 

remembers  that  Hume  used  the  empirical  theory  to  explode 
all  knowledge;  and  there  is  an  advantage,  at  times,  in  being 
able  to  doubt  an  authority  which  may  be  quoted  on  the  oth- 
er side.  Having  doubts  in  general  about  the  law  of  iden- 
tity, we  need  not  be  careful  to  preserve  a  narrow  consisten- 
cy. Mill,  at  times,  reasoned  from  his  theory  of  the  causes 
of  belief  to  the  denial  of  universal  truth  ;  although,  to  save 
unpleasant  questions,  he  demanded  "  a  reasonable  degree  of 
extension  to  adjacent  cases."  Accordingly,  when  he  sug- 
gested that  two  and  two  may  make  five,  he  was  careful  to 
locate  the  possibility  in  another  planet.  If  a  shop-keeper 
had  counted  him  out  a  couple  of  two-pound  notes,  with  the 
remark  that  they  made  five,  Mill  would  doubtless  have  re- 
garded this  as  one  of  the  "adjacent  cases"  to  which  the 
recognized  rules  of  arithmetic  demand  "a  reasonable  degree 
of  extension."  Frequently,  however,  the  empiricist  claims 
that  the  question  is  not  whether  there  be  any  universal 
truths,  but  only  how  we  come  to  their  recognition ;  and  his 
doctrine  is,  that  we  learn  these  truths  only  by  induction 
from  experience.  This  is  the  view  which  we  have  to  dis- 
cuss. Empiricism,  as  scepticism,  is  suicidal ;  for,  as  scepti- 
cism, it  throws  doubt  upon  those  principles  which  are  nec- 
essary to  its  own  proof.  In  that  case  we  could  not  believe 
without  being  compelled  to  doubt. 

"We  assume,  then,  that  there  are  universally  valid  princi- 
ples, but  that  we  learn  them  only  by  induction  from  expe- 
rience. Of  this  claim  various  criticisms  must  be  made.  In 
the  first  place,  all  proof  presupposes  some  principle  or  some 
knowledge  which  is  valid  in  its  own  right ;  that  is,  which  is 
self-evident.  Otherwise  proof  would  never  come  to  an  end, 
and  all  proof  would  be  impossible.  If  A  is  not  self-suffi- 
cient, it  must  find  its  warrant  in  B;  and  if  B  is  not  self- 
sufficient,  it,  in  turn,  must  find  its  warrant  in  C.  But 
if  C  is  likewise  in  need  of  support,  neither  A  nor  B  is 
proved  so  long  as  C  is  not  established.  It  is,  then, 
plain  either  that  there  must  be  some  propositions  which, 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  517 

because  self-evident,  need  no  proof,  or  else  that  nothing 
can  be  proved. 

This  point  deserves  further  elaboration.  The  attempt  to 
prove  first  principles  must  always  assume  some  other  prin- 
ciple which  is  truly  first.  This  is  particularly  the  case  when 
the  proof  is  simply  an  induction  from  experience.  The 
proof  of  a  universal  from  particulars  always  passes  from 
many  to  all  on  the  warrant  of  some  other  universal,  and 
without  this  other  there  is  a  lack  of  logical  connection.  To 
see  this,  examine  the  proof  of  the  law  of  causation  on  this 
view.  Of  course,  experience  gives  us  no  case  of  causal  effi- 
ciency, but  only  antecedence  and  sequence ;  but,  allowing 
that  it  can  give  more,  what  warrant  is  there  for  extending 
it  to  all  events  whatever  ?  The  mere  fact  that  the  notion  of 
an  event  cannot  be  separated  in  thought  from  the  notion  of 
a  cause  which  produced  it  is,  on  this  theory,  only  a  subjec- 
tive fact,  and  can  never  be  any  warrant  for  extending  the 
notion  beyond  experience.  It  is  an  effect  in  us,  and  not  a 
law  of  being.  What,  then,  is  the  warrant  for  transcending 
experience  and  making  the  law  universal  ?  We  may  take 
refuge  in  pretended  scepticism,  and,  while  insisting  on  the 
law  for  all  possible  experience,  and  especially  for  "  adjacent 
cases,"  claim  that  it  is  doubtful  if  the  law  be  universal.  But 
if  this  position  be  taken  in  earnest,  and  not  as  a  mere  eva- 
sion, it  is  plain  that  there  is  no  rational  ground  whatever  for 
transcending  experience.  But  if  we  are  not  willing  to  de- 
clare that  all  science  is  based  on  a  baseless  assumption  of 
causation,  then  we  must  attempt  to  give  some  proof.  And 
this  proof,  again,  can  only  consist  in  appealing  to  some  other 
principle.  We  may  say  that  nature  has  fixed  laws,  and, 
hence,  that  any  law  which  reveals  itself  in  a  long  experi- 
ence may  be  viewed  as  universal;  but  this  assumption  is  in 
far  greater  need  of  proof  than  the  law  of  causation  itself. 
To  most  minds  the  law  needs  no  proof,  while  this  assump- 
tion that  nature  has  fixed  laws,  and  that  they  must  reveal 
themselves  in  our  infinitesimal  experience,  is  neither  self- 


518  METAPHYSICS. 

evident  nor  even  probable.  But  -we  may  try  another  prin- 
ciple, and  say  that  nature  is  uniform ;  and,  as  we  have  found 
the  law  of  causation  true  in  experience,  we  may  conclude  to 
its  universality.  But  this  bridge  is  as  weak  as  the  other. 
To  begin  with,  the  uniformity  of  nature  is  not  half  so  evi- 
dent as  the  law  of  causation ;  indeed,  it  is  a  pure  postulate, 
without  which  physical  science  could  not  go  on,  but  for  which 
there  is  not  the  least  necessity  of  thought.  An  irregular, 
unpredictable  course  of  things  is  just  as  possible  as  any.  Of 
valid  proof  there  is  not  one  word.  If  we  attempt  to  con- 
clude from  n  cases  of  uniformity  to  the  (?i+l)th  case,  we 
miss  all  logical  connection,  or  we  pass  by  some  assumed 
principle,  generally  the  one  in  question.  The  conclusion 
has  not  the  slightest  force  without  the  assumption  that  reg- 
ularity of  sequence  points  to  a  fixed  and  inviolable  order, 
which  reveals  itself  in  its  action,  so  that  from  a  part  we  may 
know  the  whole.  But  this  assumption  is  not  nearly  so  clear 
as  the  law  of  causation  which  is  to  be  established.  The  fan- 
cy that  we  may  pass  from  n  cases  to  n+l  cases  by  the  doc- 
trine of  probabilities  is  especially  unfortunate  when  first 
principles  are  in  question,  for  the  doctrine  has  no  applica- 
tion at  all  except  in  a  system  of  fixed  law. 

Again,  this  uniformity  of  nature  itself,  apart  from  being 
neither  proved  nor  self-evident,  is  very  unclear  in  its  mean- 
ing. It  cannot  mean  a  uniformity  of  phenomenal  order,  for 
this  order  is  not  uniform.  The  present  phenomenal  order 
is  a  mere  eddy  in  the  onward  flow  of  being.  The  time  was 
when  it  was  not,  the  time  will  soon  come  when  it  will  be  no 
longer.  What,  then,  is  this  uniformity  to  which  appeal  is 
so  confidently  made?  It  would,  probably,  turn  out  to  be 
that  like  antecedents  have  like  consequents.  But,  apart 
from  the  fact  that  the  total  antecedents  of  two  events 
are  never  the  same,  this  proposition  has  not  the  slightest 
significance  without  the  implicit  assumption  that  the  ante- 
cedents determine  the  consequents ;  that  is,  the  principle  of 
causation  must  be  evoked  for  its  own  deduction.  Now  it  is 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  519 

plain,  from  these  considerations,  that  the  attempt  to  deduce 
universal  principles  from  experience  is  self-contradictory, 
for  the  deduction  itself  can  only  take  place  on  the  basis  of 
assumed  principles.  The  testing  of  principles,  also,  can  pro- 
ceed only  on  the  same  basis.  To  test  a  principle  whose 
truth  is  in  question,  we  compare  it  with  another  assumed  to 
be  more  evident,  and  judge  the  former  by  its  relation  to  the 
latter.  But  the  standard  itself  can  never  be  a  matter  of  de- 
duction. It  must  be  judged  by  itself,  by  its  own  self-evi- 
dence. And  this  self-evidence  can  be  discovered  and  an- 
nounced only  by  the  mind.  Ultimate  principles  must  be 
accepted  on  the  authority  of  the  mind,  for  there  is  nothing 
else  on  which  to  found  them. 

The  same  conclusion  appears  from  another  standpoint. 
Experience  is  not  only  the  source  of  truth,  but  the  source 
of  error  also.  Empirical  polemics  have  made  us  familiar 
with  the  fact  that  custom  can  give  a  delusive  appearance  of 
self-evidence  to  the  greatest  absurdities ;  and  the  history  of 
thought  shows  that  the  misleading  influence  of  association 
has  always  been  the  greatest  hinderance  to  the  discovery  of 
rational  truth.  But  since  all  beliefs  are  the  outcome  of  ex- 
perience, and  since  these  beliefs  are  often  the  most  diverse, 
it  follows  that  some  standard  of  choice  between  them  is 
called  for.  As  simple  psychological  facts,  one  is  as  good  as 
another.  As  such,  they  are  neither  true  nor  false,  but  simply 
mental  states.  They  must,  however,  be  true  or  false  as  well 
as  simple  facts,  and  some  standard  of  judgment  must  be 
found.  Since,  by  hypothesis,  the  mind  has  no  insight  of  its 
own,  the  standard  must  be  found  in  experience  itself.  We 
are,  then,  forbidden  to  call  any  combination  of  ideas  more 
absurd  or  irrational  than  any  other.  Such  terms  are  with- 
out meaning  in  our  system.  Some  combinations  are  more 
frequent  than  others,  that  is  all.  It  would  seem,  then,  that 
relative  frequency  is  the  only  test  of  truth.  But  a  double 
difficulty  meets  us.  First,  it  is  not  plain  without  some  fur- 
ther assumptions  that  this  test  is  better  than  any  other. 


520  METAPHYSICS. 

May  it  not  be  that  improper  combinations  occur  more  fre- 
quently than  proper  ones  ?  Indeed,  this  is  actually  the  case 
in  all  popular  thinking.  Besides,  who  shall  assure  us  that 
relative  frequency  in  our  experience  points  to  an  absolute 
frequency  in  all  experience  ?  Second,  our  trouble  in  this 
matter  is  increased  by  the  incessant  assurance  by  the  empir- 
icist that  the  great  mass  of  beliefs  are  totally  false.  They 
are  conjunctions  of  ideas  which  experience  has  produced, 
but  which  are  nevertheless  pure  superstitions.  It  is  a  grave 
matter  that  experience  should  be  so  careless,  that  it  should 
be  the  source  of  so  much  error  and  of  so  little  truth.  And 
even  that  truth  can  never  be  certainly  known  as  such.  The 
mind  has  no  insight  into  its  necessity ;  and  who  can  tell 
what  a  future  experience  may  do?  Whoever  will  follow 
these  considerations  out  to  their  logical  results  will  see  that 
there  is  no  middle  way  between  scepticism  and  the  admis- 
sion that  the  mind  has  a  standard  of  truth  in  its  own  native 
insight. 

It  would  be  extremely  convenient  at  this  point  to  become 
sceptical  with  regard  to  universal  knowledge,  and  confine 
ourselves  to  affirming  principles  which  have  been  learned 
from  experience,  but  which  must  have,  of  course,  a  reason- 
able degree  of  extension  to  adjacent  cases.  It  would,  in- 
deed, be  hard  to  tell  what  a  reasonable  degree  of  extension 
might  mean,  or  just  how  much  extension  would  be  reason- 
able; but  we  could  safely  count  on  the  average  dulness  to 
overlook  this  difficulty.  Such  a  procedure,  however,  would 
not  be  compatible  with  mental  seriousness.  Either  there 
are  universal  principles,  or  we  know  just  what  we  have  ex- 
perienced and  nothing  more.  The  empiricist,  then,  must 
admit  the  principles  and  seek  to  prove  them.  In  the  last 
few  paragraphs  we  have  sought  to  show  the  contradictory 
character  of  this  attempt;  we  now  propose  some  specific 
cases. 

The  law  of  identity  and  contradiction  is  a  thought-law, 
and,  according  to  the  intuitionist,  needs  no  proof.  The  em- 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  521 

piricist  will  not  allow  that  the  mind  can  know  anything  in 
its  own  right ;  and  hence  the  law  must  be  proved.  Unfort- 
unately, no  proof  is  possible  which  does  not  assume  the 
law.  If  A  is  not  definitely  A  and  not  non-A,  then  no  prop- 
osition has  any  meaning,  and  anything  may  be  everything. 
Even  the  empiricist's  denial  of  the  intuitional  view  would 
be  undistinguishable  from  its  affirmation.  Thought  cannot 
begin  without  the  law,  and  any  argument  for  it  begs  the 
question.  We  have  considered  in  a  previous  paragraph  the 
attempt  to  deduce  the  law  from  our  experience  of  the  same 
things.  We  there  saw  that  sameness  is  never  given  in  suc- 
cessive experiences,  but  only  a  certain  similarity.  The  same- 
ness is  a  mental  addition.  The  law,  then,  cannot  be  proved, 
but  must  be  either  accepted  or  rejected.  If  accepted,  it  can 
only  be  on  the  warrant  of  the  mind  itself ;  if  rejected,  all 
thought  is  at  an  end. 

Again,  what  is  the  proof  of  the  law  of  causation  ?  In  a 
previous  paragraph  we  assumed,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
that  causation  proper  can  be  observed ;  but  this  is  not  the 
case.  Only  antecedence  and  sequence  can  be  observed ;  and 
they  contain  no  hint  of  causation.  Day  precedes  night,  and 
the  moments  of  time  succeed  one  another  in  ceaseless  flow ; 
but  no  one  dreams  of  causation.  And  since  experience 
never  gives  us  a  link  of  causation  between  events,  it  is  idle 
to  talk  of  deducing  the  law  from  experience.  This  law,  too, 
must  be  either  accepted  or  rejected.  If  accepted,  it  can 
only  be  on  the  warrant  of  the  mind ;  if  rejected,  the  follow- 
ing conclusions  must  be  noted :  (1.)  Nothing  is  either  caused 
or  causal ;  but  events  are,  or  come,  or  go,  for  no  reason.  No 
event  whatever  has  any  determining  connection  with  any 
other  event ;  and  no  event  offers  the  slightest  logical  ground 
for  affirming  or  expecting  any  other  event.  (2.)  Pure  egoism 
must  result.  Mental  events  are  all  we  know;  and  these  by 
hypothesis  have  no  objective  ground.  If  one  have  a  vision 
of  a  friend  entering  the  town,  or  of  a  ferocious  dog  making 
furious  demonstrations,  or  of  a  well-spread  table,  or  of  a  happy 


522  METAPHYSICS. 

family,  it  is  all  an  opaque  and  groundless  fact  in  the  personal 
consciousness.  There  is  no  reason  for  it  •without  or  within. 
We  contemplate  our  own  visions,  and  have  not  the  slightest 
ground  for  thinking  that  there  is  aught  but  the  single  self. 
(3.)  This  conclusion,  as  we  have  seen,  cancels  empiricism  it- 
self. For  no  mental  state  has  any  longer  any  influence  over 
any  other  mental  state.  Hence  the  past  leaves  no  deposit 
in  the  mind  and  gives  no  direction  to  the  future.  By  sheer 
excess  of  empiricism  we  transcend  all  its  alleged  explana- 
tions and  geneses  of  faculty  and  belief,  and  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  each  mental  state  is  itself,  and  is  rooted  only  in 
itself.  Any  conviction,  then,  which  we  may  have,  must  be 
accepted  as  its  own  and  only  warrant ;  and  this  is  an  extrav- 
agant intuitionism.  But  if  we  cannot  accept  such  a  tire- 
some farrago,  we  must  accept  the  law  of  causation,  the  real- 
ity of  being  other  than  ourselves,  and  the  continuity  and 
eternity  of  existence ;  and  we  can  do  this  only  on  the  mind's 
own  warrant.  The  continuity  and  eternity  of  existence  are 
implications  of  the  law  of  causation.  What  existence  is 
thus  continuous  and  eternal,  the  law  does  not  say ;  it  only 
demands  that  there  shall  be  somewhere  a  continuous  and 
eternal  being.  It  is  compatible  with  the  law  of  causation 
that  phenomenal  antecedents  should  have  no  influence  upon 
phenomenal  consequents.  It  is  possible  that  both  antece- 
dents and  consequents  are  but  effects  of  a  power  underlying 
and  distinct  from  both. 

We  next  refer  to  mathematical  truth.  In  a  previous 
chapter  we  have  shown  that  space  is  a  mental  principle 
which  the  mind  contributes  to  experience.  We  here  point 
out  that  the  truths  evolved  from  this  principle  are  also  no 
product  of  experience,  and  for  the  most  part  are  unverifiable 
by  experience.  Schopenhauer  has  drawn  up  a  list  of  axioms 
concerning  both  space  and  time  which  admit  of  neither  de- 
duction nor  proof.  Space  is  one  and  continuous.  Spaces 
cannot  be  interchanged.  All  spaces  are  parts  of  the  one 
space.  All  parts  of  space  coexist.  There  is  no  succession 


APEIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  523 

in  space,  but  only  in  time.  He  gives  twenty-eiglit  proposi- 
tions of  this  kind ;  and  certainly  the  most  of  them  utterly 
transcend  any  experience  real  or  possible.  Mathematics 
also  is  born  of  reflection  upon  intuitions  in  space  and  time. 
Given  these  intuitions  of  space  and  number,  the  mind  un- 
folds the  entire  system  of  mathematics  by  simple  analysis 
and  synthesis  of  them.  In  learning  these  things  we  are  not 
referred  to  experience,  but  are  made  to  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  the  terms  employed.  Nor  in  testing  the  truths  of 
mathematics  do  we  appeal  to  experience,  but  to  the  reason 
which  produced  them.  Once  in  a  great  while  it  is  proposed 
to  verify  a  geometrical  demonstration  by  measurement ;  but, 
in  general,  such  a  suggestion  is  attributed  either  to  loss  of 
faculty  or  to  arrested  mental  development.  Whatever  ex- 
perience might  do  in  this  matter,  it  is  not  the  source  of  our 
knowledge,  and  it  is  not  its  justification.  If  we  extend  ex- 
perience to  mean  experiment,  we  still  find  it  utterly  inade- 
quate. Experiment  never  taught  that  the  area  of  the  circle 
is  equal  to  the  diameter  multiplied  by  3.14159+,  etc.;  in- 
deed, it  cannot  even  verify  the  claim.  If  the  general  prin- 
ciples for  determining  areas  were  assumed,  the  fineness  of 
measurement  required  would  make  it  impossible  to  test  the 
proposition.  Experiment  alone  could  never  give  us  astro- 
nomical distances  or  molecular  values.  Both  of  these  lie  be- 
yond any  possible  experiment.  No  more  does  experiment 
assure  us  that  the  product  of  any  large  number  by  another 
is  correct.  The  numbers  could  easily  be  taken  so  large  that 
a  lifetime  would  not  suffice  to  count  the  product.  In  all 
such  cases  we  reach  results  which  lie  beyond  any  possible 
verification  by  experiment.  These  results  are  derived  from 
reasoning  on  intuitions ;  and  for  them  we  have  no  warrant  but 
the  mind  itself.  It  would  be  an  interesting  spectacle  to  see  an 
empiricist  trying  to  get  the  equations  and  laws  of  vortex  mo- 
tion in  a  perfect  fluid  by  means  of  experiment.  If  he  should 
succeed  in  this  task,  he  might  next  try  his  hand  at  discovering 
by  experiment  the  geometry  of  a  space  of  n  dimensions. 


521  METAPHYSICS. 

Here  it  may  be  urged  that  while  mathematical  truth  in 
general  is  not  directly  obtained  from  experience,  it  is  indi- 
rectly so  obtained ;  as  the  axioms  on  which  it  is  based  are 
products  of  experience.  If  this  claim  were  allowed,  it.would 
be  distinct  abandonment  of  the  attempt  to  identify  reason- 
ing with  association.  It  admits  that  the  results  are  not  ex- 
perienced, but  are  deduced  from  experience.  The  mind  is 
allowed  to  work  over  and  combine  elements  given  in  experi- 
ence, so  as  to  reach  results  impossible  to  experience.  Thus 
by  reasoning  on  experience  we  transcend  and  enlarge  it. 
But,  apart  from  the  fact  that  this  view  is  an  implicit  aban- 
donment of  empiricism,  we  derive  no  help  from  it.  If  we 
regard  the  axioms  and  intuitions  of  mathematics  as  not  self- 
evident,  we  must  prove  them ;  and  this  is  impossible.  We 
cannot  prove  them  even  for  the  single  case.  We  cannot 
know  from  experience  that  any  two  parallel  lines  will  never 
meet ;  indeed,  we  may  be  perfectly  sure  that  any  two  which 
we  can  draw  will  meet  at  a  greater  or  less  distance.  The 
absolute  accuracy  which  the  doctrine  of  parallels  requires  is 
impossible  in  experience.  Again,  we  could  never  learn  from 
experience  that  any  given  straight  line  would  not  at  last  re- 
turn into  itself.  The  least  variation  from  the  absolute  line 
would  make  it  the  arc  of  a  circle,  and  no  inspection  would 
reveal  the  difference.  The  curve  would  be  imperceptible 
to  sense,  and  therefore  sense  could  not  decide  the  question. 
For  all  such  propositions  we  are  thrown  back  upon  our  space- 
intuitions  and  their  corresponding  definitions.  Doubtless 
these  intuitions  are  awakened  in  us  by  experience,  but  they 
are  never  given  in  their  purity  in  any  experience.  The  per- 
fect circle,  the  true  parallels,  the  absolutely  straight  line,  we 
have  never  seen,  and  should  not  know  them  if  we  did.  For 
any  straight  line  which  we  could  draw,  a  segment  of  a  large 
circle  could  always  be  substituted  ;  and  no  sense  could  tell 
the  difference.  For  any  two  parallels,  we  could  always  sub- 
stitute the  segments  of  cutting  circles ;  and,  if  the  circles 
were  large  enough,  no  sense  could  tell  the  difference.  Since, 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  525 

then,  there  is  no  warrant  for  saying  that  any  two  actual  lines 
will  never  meet,  and  since,  on  the  contrary,  we  may  be  per- 
fectly sure  that  they  will  meet,  it  is  absurd  to  appeal  to  ex- 
perience to  prove  the  doctrine  of  parallels.  Similar  reason- 
ing applies  to  other  propositions. 

But  suppose  it  were  proved  by  experience  that  a  given 
proposition  is  valid  in  a  single  case,  what  warrant  is  there 
for  extending  it  to  all  cases  ?  Allow  that  two  given  parallels 
will  not  meet,  does  that  warrant  us  in  saying  that  two  others 
at  right  angles  to  the  former,  or  lying  outside  of  the  orbit  of 
Xeptune,  will  never  meet?  May  not  direction  have  an  effect 
on  the  fact  ?  or  may  not  different  parts  of  space  have  differ- 
ent geometrical  properties  ?  Besides,  what  shall  assure  us 
that  time  itself  may  not  modify  all  mathematical  truth? 
Suppose  it  be  found  that  the  equation  Vab  =  Va  x  ^fb  is 
valid  for  particular  values  of  a  and  Z»,  that  does  not  warrant 
us  in  making  it  universal.  If  a  and  b  and  n  are  taken  as  large 
numbers,  and  a  and  J  are  surds,  it  might  seriously  embarrass 
the  empiricist  to  prove  the  equation  for  a  single  case ;  but 
to  prove  it  for  all  quantities  would  be  a  task.  Either  we 
must  posit  an  insight  by  the  mind  into  the  nature  of  space 
and  number,  or  we  must  confine  ourselves  strictly  to  experi- 
ence. In  the  former  case  we  abandon  empiricism ;  in  the 
latter  we  have  to  say,  with  Mill,  that  for  aught  we  know 
two  and  two  may  make  five.  Of  course,  to  avoid  trouble, 
we  locate  the  possibility  on  some  other  planet.  The  princi- 
ple itself  contains  no  reason  why  it  should  be  on  some  other 
planet  rather  than  on  this  planet  and  in  the  next  moment ; 
but  the  prudential  reasons  for  removing  the  wonder  to  a 
distance  both  in  space  and  time  are  obvious.  The  principle 
also  contains  no  reason  why  two  and  two  should  make  five 
rather  than  five  thousand,  or  even  nothing.  If  adding  can 
create,  it  can  create  a  multitude  as  well  as  a  single  unit,  but, 
upon  the  whole,  it  is  best  to  stop  at  five.  However,  put  the 
marvel  in  another  world,  and  outside  of  "  a  reasonable  de- 
gree of  extension  to  adjacent  cases,"  and  we  can  play  dog- 


526  METAPHYSICS. 

matist  and  sceptic  as  we  like.  Of  course,  great  care  must 
be  taken  to  prevent  any  inquiry  as  to  what  a  reasonable  de- 
gree of  extension  may  mean  ;  for  such  questions,  if  pushed, 
could  not  fail  to  be  disquieting. 

Upon  the  whole,  we  cannot  accept  empiricism.  As  a  psy- 
chology, it  fails  to  explain  the  facts  of  mind ;  as  a  philoso- 
phy, it  is  suicidal ;  as  a  system,  it  is  without  consistency. 
If,  however,  any  one  still  feels  well  disposed  towards  the 
doctrine,  we  venture  to  suggest  a  few  points  to  be  kept  in 
mind.  (1.)  Let  him  decide  what  he  means  by  experience. 
If  he  means  only  affections  of  the  sensibility,  let  him  show 
how  such  affections  can  generate  the  laws  and  categories  of 
thought.  If  he  means  by  experience  the  old-fashioned,  un- 
reasoned view  of  Locke,  in  which  all  the  categories  were 
implicit,  let  him  answer  the  Kantian  question,  How  is  expe- 
rience possible  ?  (2.)  Let  him  decide  as  to  the  place  of  the 
outer  world  in  his  theory,  whether  it  be  real  or  unreal ;  a 
determining  ground  of  our  mental  life,  or  only  a  projection 
of  sensitive  states.  If  he  decides  that  our  mental  states  are 
objectively  determined,  let  him  show  where  he  gets  the  no- 
tion of  determination.  If  he  decides  that  they  are  not  ob- 
jectively determined,  let  him  show  how  to  escape  pure  ego- 
ism. If  he  decides  that  there  is  no  determination  anywhere, 
let  him  show  that  his  own  doctrine  does  not  disappear.  (3.) 
Let  him  further  decide  whether  he  admits  any  universal 
principles  or  not.  If  he  does  admit  them,  let  him  show  how 
universal  principles  can  be  deduced  or  proved  from  a  par- 
ticular experience  without  positing  a  self-sufficing  insight  in 
the  mind.  If  he  denies  both  the  insight  and  the  fixed  prin- 
ciples, let  him  show  that  any  proper  truth  remains,  or  that 
the  result  is  not  an  overwhelming  scepticism.  (4.)  Let  him 
also  master  the  distinction  between  the  causes  and  grounds 
of  belief,  and  keep  the  two  questions  separate.  After  he 
has  fairly  grasped  the  difference,  let  him  give  some  standard 
of  truth  which  shall  not  either  vanish  into  scepticism  or  rest 
upon  mental  insight.  Of  course,  in  doing  this  work,  he  is 


APRIORISM  AND  EMPIRICISM.  527 

expected  not  to  beg  the  question,  and  not  to  appeal  to 
thoughtless  common -sense  to  help  him  out  of  trouble. 
Common-sense  is  good  in  its  place,  but  its  place  is  not  to 
defend  a  theory  from  its  own  consequences.  The  proof,  if 
given  at  all,  must  be  from  the  data  of  the  theory  itself. 
Pending  such  proof,  we  hold  that  the  mind  is  able  to  know 
some  things  on  its  own  account  —  that  is,  apriori.  This 
apriori  character  of  rational  truth,  however,  does  not  consist 
in  its  being  universally  or  easily  known,  but  in  the  fact  that, 
when  known,  the  mind  accepts  it  on  its  own  warrant. 

"We  have  expressed  at  great  and  wearisome  length  our 
disagreement  with  empiricism ;  it  remains  to  offer  a  word 
of  criticism  of  apriorism.  In  its  extreme  form,  as  held  by 
the  absolute  idealists,  this  view  regards  being  as  a  rational 
necessity ;  and,  as  reason  is  timeless,  a  pure  pantheism  of 
the  Eleatic  type,  and  a  rigid  fatalism,  result.  But  fatalism 
is  also  scepticism,  and  knowledge  perishes.  Contingency 
and  freedom  are  as  necessary  to  reason  as  insight  and  neces- 
sity. But,  apart  from  this  extreme  view,  the  apriorists  have 
been  guilty  of  oversights  which  justify  the  existence  of  the 
experience  school,  and  which  are  almost  as  inexcusable  as 
the  imbecilities  of  extreme  empiricism.  We  have  often  re- 
ferred to  the  fact  of  two  orders  of  mental  movement — an 
order  of  experience  and  association,  and  an  order  of  thought 
or  reason.  The  empiricist  is  one-sided  in  trying  to  reduce 
the  latter  to  the  former,  and  in  ignoring  all  elements  which 
resist  reduction.  The  extreme  rationalist  is  equally  one- 
sided in  trying  to  reduce  the  former  to  the  latter,  and  in  ig- 
noring the  elements  which  resist  reduction.  We  have  also 
pointed  out  that  speculation  may  proceed  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  pure  reason,  or  from  that  of  the  individual 
mind.  The  intuitionists  have  occupied  the  former  stand- 
point, the  empiricists  have  occupied  the  latter,  and  both 
have  ignored  the  just  claims  of  the  other.  Accordingly  the 
rationalists  have  dismissed  questions  concerning  the  human 


528  METAPHYSICS. 

mind  as  dealing  only  with  "  the  history  of  the  individual," 
and  have  confined  themselves  mainly  to  the  impersonal  rea- 
son. In  this  way  they  have  ignored  most  of  the  facts  of 
reality,  and  have  made  reason  a  substantial  existence.  Thus 
there  results  a  complete  oversight  of  the  fact  that  reason  is 
real  only  as  thinking  beings  exist.  The  best  outcome  of 
this  way  of  philosophizing  is  a  system  of  categories,  which 
is  very  good  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  which  does  not  go  very 
far.  For,  because  this  system  must  explain  everything,  it 
explains  of  itself  the  peculiarities  of  nothing.  It  is  purely 
formal,  and  gives  no  insight  into  the  details  of  reality. 
Hence  reason,  as  a  system  of  formal  truth,  does  not  account 
for  a  single  fact  of  the  outer  world,  or  for  the  actual  order 
and  content  of  our  inner  experience.  In  this  respect  it  is 
like  the  principles  of  mechanics,  which,  while  ruling  the 
changes  of  matter  and  motion,  account  for  neither  matter 
nor  motion.  Our  certainty,  on  rational  grounds,  that  there 
is  causation  in  the  cosmos,  tells  us  nothing  concerning  what 
is  caused,  or  concerning  the  method  and  order  of  this  causa- 
tion ;  indeed,  it  does  not  even  tell  us  that  there  is  a  method. 
In  treating  of  cosmology,  we  saw  that  none  of  the  specific 
laws  of  the  system  are  rational  necessities;  and  we  further 
saw  that  if  they  were,  they  would  necessitate  no  actual  prod- 
uct without  assuming  a  certain  set  of  arbitrary  constants. 
There  is  likewise  nothing  in  the  pure  reason  to  explain  the 
variegated  processes  of  mental  association.  These,  doubt- 
less, belong  to  "the  history  of  the  individual,"  but  they  are 
facts,  nevertheless.  The  attempt  to  solve  such  problems 
by  appealing  to  the  pure  reason,  whether  spelled  with  a 
small  or  a  large  R,  is  almost  enough  to  justify  the  narrow- 
ness of  empiricists  in  general.  There  will  always  be,  then, 
a  large  and  highly  important  field  to  be  occupied  by  expe- 
rience ;  for,  of  n  systems  and  facts,  all  alike  logically  possi- 
ble, experience  only  can  show  which  has  been  realized.  A 
cosmic  order  is  possible  which  should  admit  of  no  rational 
interpretation.  Such  a  system  might  be  entirely  repre- 


APBIORISM   AND  EMPIRICISM.  529 

sentable ;  and,  indeed,  the  present  system  is  such  a  one  in 
many  of  its  features.  The  bulk  of  its  phenomena,  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge,  do  not  admit  of  being 
brought  into  any  rational  connection,  setiological  or  teleo- 
logical.  What  is  thus  partly  true  for  us  in  the  present  sys- 
tem might  well  be  universal.  Owing  to  the  absence  of  a 
fixed  method,  or  to  the  incommensurability  of  the  compo- 
nents, a  cosmic  order  might  exist  which  should  be  purely 
kaleidoscopic.  That  the  actual  system  admits  of  a  rational 
construction,  as  well  as  of  representation,  is  a  fact  learned 
only  from  experience.  The  discovery  of  this  fact  enables 
us  to  bring  our  rational  principles,  especially  those  of  space 
and  number,  to  the  interpretation  of  experience ;  but  even 
then  the  arbitrary  data  of  the  problem  must  all  be  learned 
from  experience.  If  we  insist  on  deducing  these  data  them- 
selves, it  cannot  be  from  the  pure  reason,  but  only  from  the 
plan  of  the  whole.  There  is,  then,  in  our  total  experience 
a  contingent  as  well  as  a  rational  element ;  and  the  former 
can  be  learned  only  from  experience.  That  both  are  neces- 
sary to  rationality  has  already  been  pointed  out. 

Another  prominent  shortcoming  of  the  apriorists  is  the 
failure  to  recognize  the  value  and  significance  of  feeling  and 
life  in  the  universe.  The  result  has  been  a  one-sided  intel- 
lectualism  and  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  logical  forms. 
The  tendency  has  been  to  regard  the  individual,  the  only 
reality  and  the  seat  of  all  values,  as  having  no  significance 
beyond  serving  as  a  specimen  of  a  category.  In  this  way 
life  and  personality  have  been  degraded  from  their  true  sig- 
nificance into  abstract  forms  without  either  life  or  meaning. 
But  there  is  always  something  deeper  than  thought ;  it  is 
the  thinking,  living  person.  And  there  is  something  deeper 
in  the  person  than  formal  thought ;  it  is  life  and  aspiration. 
Reality  is  not  merely  to  be  comprehended  under  logical 
forms ;  it  is  also  to  be  lived  and  enjoyed.  We  have  seen 
that  the  understanding  gives  only  the  form,  and  not  the 
content  of  existence.  Hence  the  aesthetic,  the  ethical,  and 


530  METAPHYSICS. 

the  religious  nature  have  always  claimed  to  bring  us  nearer 
to  the  life  of  being  and  its  true  significance  than  the  under- 
standing can  ever  come.  In  the  contemplation  of  the  beau- 
tiful, in  devotion  to  the  good,  and  in  the  service  and  wor- 
ship of  the  perfect,  we  enter  into  the  inmost  life  of  reality, 
and  become  one  with  the  universe.  It  is  the  gravest  over- 
sight on  the  part  of  intellectualism  to  overlook  all  this,  and 
seek  to  reduce  man  to  understanding  only. 

We  said  that  the  possibility  of  understanding  the  world 
lies  in  an  insight  into  its  purpose,  because  the  formal  neces- 
sities of  reason  explain  nothing  but  possibility.  But  the 
purpose  of  things  is  largely  hidden  from  us,  and  there  is 
nothing  to  do  but  to  confess  that  God's  ways  in  the  world 
are  past  finding  out.  Evidences  of  skill  abound,  but  the 
purpose  of  the  whole  is  hidden.  We  cannot  even  surmise 
the  meaning  of  most  of  the  arrangements  of  the  system. 
We  see  no  end,  or  none  which  seems  worth  realizing.  But 
one  general  assumption  is  necessary  to  save  the  mind  from 
pessimism.  We  must  assume  that  the  end  of  the  system  is 
such  as  to  justify  the  system,  and  this  compels  us  to  put  the 
end  in  the  ethical  realm.  If  ever  a  sufficient  interpretation 
of  the  system  is  found,  the  basal  principle  of  the  system  will 
prove  to  be  an  ethical  one.  No  analysis  of  our  metaphysi- 
cal notions  will  ever  reveal  why  the  system  is  as  it  is.  Such 
insight  is  even  formally  possible  only  as  we  rise  above  the 
plane  of  ontology  and  formal  thought,  and  come  to  the  con- 
ception of  purpose.  And  in  determining  which  of  many 
purposes  shall  be  adopted  we  must  rise  to  the  conception  of 
the  fitting  and  the  perfect.  But  this,  again,  can  be  deter- 
mined only  by  appeal  to  our  aesthetic  and  moral  insight.  If 
what  is  shall  ever  be  understood,  it  will  be  only  from  the 
side  of  what  ought  to  be. 


CONCLUSION.  531 


CONCLUSION. 

TIIE  understanding  is  supposed  to  have  great  power,  but 
the  misunderstanding  is  mightier  still.  Nothing  gives  one 
so  profound  an  impression  at  once  of  the  strength  and  of 
the  total  depravity  of  the  human  intellect  as  the  perverse 
ingenuity  of  the  misunderstanding.  We  have  not  the  slight- 
est hope  of  escaping  the  persecution  of  this  malign  faculty ; 
and  yet  it  may  be  allowed,  in  bringing  our  work  to  an  end, 
to  make  a  final  attempt  to  ward  off  two  patent  misconcep- 
tions. 

Not  to  hit  a  mark  at  which  one  does  not  aim  is,  in  itself, 
no  hardship,  but  to  be  blamed  therefor  is  a  matter  for  great 
patience.  Concerning  our  speculations,  one  class  of  critics 
will  ask  what  light  they  throw  upon  practical  questions. 
Is  there  anything  in  our  conception  of  cosmic  laws  as  being 
modes  of  procedure  on  the  part  of  the  infinite  which  gives 
even  the  least  practical  information  as  to  what  those  laws 
are?  Does  the  view  that  the  atom  is  only  an  elementary 
form  of  divine  agency  contain  any  hint  of  its  actual  proper- 
ties ?  Does  the  alleged  reality  of  the  soul  explain  observed 
differences  of  disposition,  talent,  temperament,  etc.  ?  Does 
it  even  account  for  one  single  feature  of  the  interaction  of 
soul  and  body  ?  And,  since  a  negative  answer  must  be  re- 
turned to  all  these  questions,  the  critic  proceeds  to  condem- 
nation. But  surely  it  ought  to  be  some  bar  to  judgment 
that  we  have  not  sought  to  do  any  of  the  things  suggested, 
and  that  we  said  so  at  the  start.  It  has  not  even  occurred 
to  us  to  seek  for  a  detailed  knowledge  of  reality  by  way  of 


532  METAPHYSICS. 

speculation.  We  have  not  sought  to  discover  the  specific 
laws  and  forces  of  the  system,  but  only  how  we  shall  think 
of  such  laws  and  forces,  discovered  or  undiscovered.  Our 
aim  has  been  to  get  an  outline-conception  of  reality  into 
which  all  knowledge  of  details  must  fall,  and  according  to 
which  details  must  be  understood.  No  important  discov- 
eries are  likely  to  be  made  until  we  have  first  learned  what 
may  be  discovered.  In  order  to  progress,  there  must  be 
guiding  and  interpreting  principles.  Hence  it  is  not  per- 
missible to  deal  with  details  in  an  arbitrary  or  lawless  fash- 
ion ;  they  must  rather  be  interpreted  according  to  the  basal 
principles.  Principles,  then,  not  details,  are  the  subject  of 
our  study.  At  the  same  time,  we  are  fully  aware  that,  if 
our  conclusions  were  all  valid,  we  should  still  be  shut  up  to 
observation  and  experiment  for  all  knowledge  of  the  details 
of  the  system.  Indeed,  this  fact  is  now  so  little  questioned 
that  only  the  might  of  the  misunderstanding  can  excuse  any 
reference  to  it.  The  incessant  repetition  even  of  good  ad- 
vice becomes  at  last  somewhat  tiresome.  Upon  the  whole, 
we  decline  being  blamed  for  not  doing  what  we  have  never 
sought  to  do. 

Another  class  of  critics  will  reverse  this  misunderstanding. 
While  the  former  critics  reject  all  inquiry  into  principles, 
the  latter  reject  all  study  of  details.  If  such  critics  should 
agree  with  the  principles  expounded,  they  would  regard 
practical  investigation  as  useless,  if  not  impossible.  Ap- 
proval of  this  kind  would  be  like  praise  for  hitting  a  mark 
that  had  not  been  aimed  at — a  performance  which,  in  the 
"  abysmal  depths  of  personality,"  gives  very  little  satisfac- 
tion. Yet  such  extravagance  is  not  unknown  in  the  history 
of  speculation,  nor  is  it  even  obsolete.  Theistic  writers  have 
often  spoken  as  if  the  affirmation  of  purpose  in  the  system 
contained  all  that  is  worth  knowing.  In  truth,  however, 
such  affirmation  reveals  neither  the  actual  purposes  of  the 
system  nor  the  mode  of  their  realization.  It  is,  therefore, 
not  blasphemy,  but  the  simple  truth,  when  the  practical 


CONCLUSION.  533 

scientist  says  that  God  is  of  no  use  in  the  laboratory.  The 
profoundest  theistic  faith  gives  no  practical  facility  with  the 
electro-magnet  or  in  directing  chemical  processes.  But  this 
point  has  been  sufficiently  emphasized  in  treating  of  the 
mechanical  theory  of  the  system.  We  wish  only  to  decline 
to  be  considered  as  an  opponent  of  inductive  science,  or  as 
offering  any  substitute  for  it. 

But,  leaving  the  misunderstandings  to  themselves,  what  is 
the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  ?  The  first  is,  that  life 
and  being  are  vastly  more  mysterious  than  we  commonly 
think.  Again  and  again  have  we  returned  to  the  current 
views  of  things ;  and,  although  they  seemed  self-sufficing  at 
first,  they  have  invariably  vanished  into  mystery.  In  par- 
ticular, the  mathematico-mechanical  view  of  existence  dis- 
appeared when  being,  in  itself,  was  seen  to  elude  all  space- 
determinations.  Along  with  this  view  vanishes  all  hope  of 
picturing  being  in  its  true  existence.  Finite  things  coexist 
in  unpicturable  relations  of  interaction,  and  in  unpicturable 
dependence  upon  the  unpicturable  infinite. 

A  second  conclusion  is,  the  impossibility  of  saving  reason 
from  utter  distrust  of  itself  and  its  conclusions  on  anything 
but  a  theistic  and  spiritual  basis.  It  may  be  that  philosophy 
and  rational  science  are  impossible  on  any  basis ;  they  cer- 
tainly are  so  on  any  atheistic  or  materialistic  theory. 

A  third  conclusion  is,  that  the  necessity  which  is  sup- 
posed to  rule  in  the  system  is  mainly  a  shadow  of  the  mind's 
own  throwing.  Nature  shows  no  trace  of  rational  necessity, 
and  ontological  necessity  is  a  phrase  to  which  no  clear  thought 
corresponds. 

A  fourth  conclusion  is,  that  the  grounds  of  objective  cer- 
tainty in  our  knowledge  of  the  finite  lie  neither  in  psychol- 
ogy alone  nor  in  metaphysics  alone,  but  also,  and  chiefly,  in 
our  moral  convictions  concerning  what  ought  to  be.  There 
is  nothing  deeper  in  mind  than  these,  and  if  they  fail,  then 
logic  can  only  declare  that  there  is  no  longer  any  warrant 


534:  METAPHYSICS. 

for  regarding  our  world-vision,  with  all  that  it  contains,  as 
more  than  our  private  dreams.  The  logical  weakness  of 
objective  science  and  the  ethical  postulates  on  which  it  rests 
have  never  yet  been  made  the  subject  of  an  adequate  exam- 
ination. 

At  the  beginning,  two  questions  were  distinguished,  How 
is  knowledge  possible?  and,  What  is  the  nature  of  reality? 
The  former  question  was  turned  over  to  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge, and  the  latter  was  reserved  for  our  study.  In  fact, 
however,  the  two  questions  have  not  been  kept  entirely 
separate,  especially  in  the  latter  part  of  the  work.  Some  of 
the  psychological  discussions  belong  as  much,  at  least,  to  the 
theory  of  knowledge  as  to  metaphysics.  This  fact  has  two 
grounds.  First,  the  two  questions  run  into  each  other,  and 
neither  can  be  fully  discussed  without  some  reference  to  the 
other.  The  other  ground  lies  in  the  mystery  of  self-deter- 
mination. 


THE    END. 


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